Co-managers Nigel Greenwood and David Rawcliffe were delighted with Preston North End Women’s win against Blackpool Ladies on Wednesday evening.
Madison Hadley scored all four goals in the derby-day clash, giving the side their first league win of the season following a draw away to Accrington Stanley last weekend.
Greenwood is a North End former player, enjoying two spells at Deepdale in the 1980s and 1990s, while Rawcliffe is a lifelong Lilywhites supporter, along with many members of the playing squad.
Speaking after the Blackpool game, Greenwood said: “We had a good really good start, we asked the girls for the first ten to 15 minutes to get at Blackpool and impose our game on them rather than wait to see what they can do. They took it out to letter. To go up 3-0 in 15 minutes against a good side, we couldn’t be happier.
“You’ve always got to be on it defensively because as soon as the team gets one back, you’re on the back foot. After they scored the second, we started weathering the storm a little bit more, we started battling, rolling our sleeves up and winning second balls and I think we started to control the game more ourselves after that.
“We showed a side to us that we’ve not really seen a lot of – we’re more of a footballing side and like to get the ball down and pass through teams but today we showed we’ve got the resilience to hit back when teams come at us.”
Meanwhile, Rawcliffe admitted that it was a pleasing feeling to get the win on derby day.
He added: “For the first 15 minutes, we were brilliant. We thought we started a bit slowly in the first game of the season at Accrington away, so we asked them to step it up and come out. They did that and three goals in the first 14 minutes was excellent.
“We want to win every game but being a PNE fan, playing Blackpool as your local rivals, of course, you want to try to win and but also try to put on a performance and I thought we did that.
“We had to graft in the second half to get back in the game. Once they got back to 3-2, we controlled it a lot better and got that fourth goal that we needed. It was a great win and we’ll take that.”
Watch more Nigel, David and goalscoring hero Madison on this week’s episode of The Weekend Warm Up, your official Preston North End pre-match show, by clicking here.