Beth Merrick has admitted that last week’s defeat to Burnley made the group hungry to cause an upset and beat Reading on Sunday.
Merrick scored the equaliser to draw Wolves Women level at the EBB Stadium, before Destiney Toussaint’s winner two minutes from time secured the Old Gold’s place in the fifth round of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup for the first time since the 2002/03 season. Merrick has described the performances throughout the team as ‘incredible’ and explained the ‘unbelievable’ feeling of scoring in the historic competition once again.
On beating Championship opposition
“It’s amazing, I can’t say it enough. Any cup but the FA Cup, I absolutely love the cup. I think Macca’s mentioned it so many times that this kind of thing is about making memories.
“We weren’t content with just coming down here and putting on a good show. We genuinely wanted to come down here and cause an upset. We absolutely have done.
“First half I still thought we deserved it. We came in at 1-0 down and actually we were really disappointed at half-time. We had to get our heads up and second half the character we showed was unbelievable.
“To a man, to the subs who came on, to the bench, incredible.”
On bouncing back
“Sometimes with a loss you’ve got to put the positives on it. It’s made us hungry and the quality of everything we’ve done this week has been spot on.
“We had some tough words on Tuesday and we weren’t happy with what happened last week.
“Our league campaign is ultimately what defines us at the end of the year, but coming here today will give us massive confidence going into whatever we do next.
“We have to make sure that the standards we’ve set today, we continue.”
On her equaliser
“I’ll be honest, I can’t remember too much of it. I just know that it felt unbelievable. I’ve got a habit of scoring in the FA Cup and they always mean the world – especially for this club, it’s an amazing feeling.
The emotions of scoring in the #AdobeWomensFACup 💛 pic.twitter.com/ciacefT2hL
— Adobe Women's FA Cup (@AdobeWFACup) January 14, 2024
“To get the equaliser, your tails are up and you can see the confidence we had to go and get that second.
“We hit the bar, so it was coming for us and I can’t explain how amazing it was. It was a great time to score as well.
“The character to come back from that 1-0 going in at half-time and turn it around was unreal.”
On the next round
“We take it game by game. We’ll see what we get in the draw and we’ll be grateful for whatever we get.
“We’ll attack it with the same as what we have in this one. Like I said, we’ll enjoy this moment and we absolutely will do.”
