Sophie Brisland-Hancocks | Resilience can be key heading into phase two

Sophie Brisland-Hancocks believes Swansea City Women’s resilience can prove crucial over the second phase of the Genero Adran Premier season after their 2-0 south Wales derby win over Cardiff City Women saw them close the gap at the top of the table to five points.

The result ended the Bluebirds 35-match unbeaten run in the league, with Chloe Chivers opening the scoring with a 35-yard thunderbolt, before captain doubled the lead in the final 10 minutes as she converted from an Emily Thomas cross.

It was the ideal way for the Swans to close phase one of the league campaign, and defender Brisland-Hancocks was delighted her side got their rewards for a fine performance.

“We took a lot of confidence from the first half, we knew we had played well but during the second half we knew we needed to step up a gear because they were going to come out quickly,” she said.

“But the fact that we matched it and were even better in the second half is really encouraging moving forward.

“They are a good team, we knew that we had to perform at our best to get the three points, which is exactly what we did.

“We respect them, but we proved what we can do in terms of our football ability and our scoring ability.

“We showed true grit and resilience which is something we pride ourselves on as a team and we dug deep and got the result from it.

“It's a huge win for us, it sets us up nicely for phase two, we have a week off now, but we have two semi-finals back-to-back and we just want to keep the momentum going.

“I have a lot of confidence in us as a group, including the staff, we will have to keep level-headed, but we will try to use the confidence to push on through phase two.”