Women’s Under-21s ready for challenge of the FAWNL Plate

Women’s Academy Technical Coaching Manager Nick Hardy and Under-21s captain Emily McMaster are relishing the opportunity to compete in the FA Women’s National League Plate on Sunday.

The Under-21s will travel to The Meadow to face Chesham United, who are competing in the FAWNL Division One South East, in the preliminary round of the competition. 

It’ll be the first time we will enter in this cup competition after it was announced that Professional Game Academy League sides had been invited into the Plate for the current campaign.

Stepping away from Professional Game Academy League action this weekend, where we picked up our first three points of the season on Wednesday with a 2-1 win over London City Lionesses, Hardy is looking forward to seeing his squad go head-to-head against senior opposition.

“It’s a really exciting fixture for the staff and players however, as a group, we don’t approach it any differently in terms of our organisation and set-up,” he said.

“In terms of the opposition, it will be the biggest learning experience for the players and it’s something we are really relishing to see how we fare against a senior organisation, on and off the pitch. It’s definitely one we are looking forward to and learning as much as we can from this.”

Reflecting on the midweek win over London City Lionesses, he added: “Wednesday’s result was a positive one for us in terms of the outcome but, in reflection, we probably could have got more out of it.

“From a morale perspective, it was perfect to get a win, three points, ahead of a difficult test against a senior set-up. It has added a bit of confidence going into that fixture and, hopefully, an opportunity to maintain momentum.”

Defender Emily is in her second season with the Under-21s, having joined us from Reading’s Academy ahead of the 2023/24 campaign, and she is excited for the challenge to test herself against senior opposition.

“It’s an exciting challenge,” she told us. “It’s certainly going to be different, it will probably be a physical game but we know that technically we should be up there and able to compete, so we need to make sure we showcase a good account of ourselves.”

When discussing the season so far, she added: “It has been very encouraging, we put a lot of work in during pre-season, especially the coaches who put in a lot of effort over the summer, and it’s starting to pay off in the performances recently.

“It was important to pick up the first three points of the season and hopefully we can just build on that now and start to hit our targets that we set out at the start of the season.”