Bristol City Women head coach Steve Kirby has admitted that he believes his side’s clash with Sunderland on Sunday will be their “biggest challenge” so far in his short tenure but another chance to pick up three points.
The Robins go into this weekend’s fixture off the back of three consecutive league wins, most recently a 1-0 victory over Portsmouth, and currently sit sixth in the Women’s Championship table.
However, a win at the Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground could see them climb to as high as second and potentially just two points off top spot, where they will hope to be come the end of the campaign.
Speaking ahead of the Robins’ trip to Sunderland, Kirby admitted that he believes that it will be another fixture that his should see as an opportunity to pick up three points.
“Sunderland is as winnable a game as every other,” the City boss said. “If we’re going to do what I want us to achieve, more often than not, we need to be the winning team.
“We have to look at every team as winnable regardless of whether they’re bottom of the league, whether they’re above us in the league or close to us.
“From our perspective, from our paper, they’re as winnable as everybody else is, and it’s an opportunity to get three points and that’s what we’ll be trying to do.”
But despite seeing the trip to the North East as a chance to extend their winning run, Kirby acknowledged that it certainly won’t be an easy game.
“They’ll pose a real threat, they have a distinct style in their play, which suits well for them, they have the profile of players to play the way they do, they’ve had a consistent setup in terms of staff for a long period of time, and they know what they’re doing.
“It’ll be a physical game, it’ll be a challenge from that perspective and probably the hardest one that we’ve had in terms of winning duels, regaining the ball, loose balls, dealing with high balls and threats from set pieces, and all those types of things.
“So, it’ll probably be the biggest challenge we’ve had him in my short tenure here, but we know that and we’re ready for that and I’m excited to deal with it.”
With ten senior players away on international duty over this past week, the positive momentum could have taken a hit, but with everyone returning fit and positive, Kirby believes that the break has only been a positive for his team.
“As I said prior to the window, some would have had some really, really, good experiences.
“People like Ffion [Morgan] and Ella [Powell] away with Wales and Jackie [Burns] away with Northern Ireland, playing in those high-profile games and on the big stage is only a good part of their development, and they can bring those experiences and knowledge and learning from those back into our environment.”