Dan McNamara reflected on his side’s local derby victory against Stourbridge Women as Wolves Women ran out dominant 7-2 winners on Sunday afternoon.
Charlotte Greengrass and Amber Hughes both netted hat-tricks, with the latter scoring four. McNamara spoke about his side’s victory, Greengrass and Hughes’ impact as well as welcoming back players from injury to help the squad’s effort ahead of the second half of the season.
On the game
“It’s a win in a local derby. It’s always a tough place to go, they want to fight, they want to work hard, they came at us and had a real go, so credit to Stourbridge.
“Tempers flared at the end but it’s football, things happen on the pitch, players lose their heads at times and it is what it is. It’s disappointing to lose Destiney, she knows she doesn’t need to get involved with that so she’s disappointed. But it’s a win and seven goals which is what we needed to start the year off with.
“We’re disappointed with conceding, everyone knows my stance on conceding goals, so it’s disappointing to switch off in a couple of moments and tarnish the result with conceding, but it’s about keeping the train going, keep rolling and so far, the girls have done that by starting 2025 with a win.”
On Hughes and Greengrass
“They need to stop taking match balls home, we’ve not got many left! It’s fantastic to see what they’ve done together, the connection they’ve made together over the past five or so months that we’ve been working together is just phenomenal.
“Week-in-week out amber is just an outstanding player and now she’s got an outstanding player to play next to her. They’re both goalscorers with the goals they score, they get in the right places in the right moments, with players like Destiney and Beth Roberts getting themselves assists today.
“They’ll also be disappointed because they missed a couple of chances where they could have done better. We said at half-time that no one remembers what happens box-to-box, they remember what happens in each box.
“But we take it, it’s another three points on the board. That’s now ten games to go and we’ll see what happens over the course of the second half of the season.”
On the return of Summer Holmes and others
“We know what quality Summer can bring to the group, she’s really calm and collected with everything she does, and she adds a real edge in there. It’s great to get her back on as well as Abi Jenner after she was out with a little niggle.
“Then to get minutes into other players who have waited for their chance was great. We’ve got a disappointed Jade Cross in there, but we spoke at half-time, and she’s been the go-to sub recently, so her minutes are up. We wanted to give other players a chance today.
“Like I’ve said before, it’s a team effort, there’s 23, 24 players involved plus the ten staff. We just have to keep working hard on and off the pitch and hopefully we can carry on making things happen."
By Callum Greybanks
