Dan McNamara hailed his side's performance after the Old Gold sealed their first league victory of 2024 after a convincing 3-0 win against Liverpool Feds at the New Bucks Head.
Wolves Women got the scoring underway inside the opening 15 minutes when Beth Merrick converted from 25 yards out. The second came minutes before half-time as Destiney Toussaint poked home from a corner, and Jade Cross wrapped up all three points in the 96th minute by slotting into the bottom corner from close range.
McNamara spoke about the team's first league victory of the year, Summer Holmes making her first start after an eight-month stint on the side lines due to injury, successive home fixtures on the horizon and Bec Thomas keeping a clean sheet.
On the first league win of 2024
"It is a big win for lots of reasons: the girls needed it, I needed it, the staff needed it and the whole club needed it, so I am delighted to get the three points.
"It has not always been our fault as such that we haven't had that first win in the league in 2024, it's still never nice.
"We have had some tough games, so to get it in the bag heading into what will be a tough two weeks is really important; for the whole group, that was a big win."
On Holmes making her first start in over eight months
"It has been a long eight months. We have great players in that dressing room, and I am not taking anything away from what the players have done whilst she has been absent.
"But Summer is Summer; you can see how much quality she brings. She is so calm on the ball.
"Nothing fazes her, she picks passes, and some of those passes were a little bit off today, and that's fine as she's had eight months on the side.
"I thought she showed some tremendous moments in the first 45 minutes.
"Gutted that we had to take her off as we wanted to leave her on, but sometimes you have to let the medical team have their way.
"Hopefully, that will pay off in the future games, and in the next couple of weeks, we can start to introduce her more and more."
On three successive home fixtures coming up
"We love playing against the best teams in the league. I don't know how today (results) has gone, but we are still not out of mixing it with Burnley and Forest this year after that result.
"Newcastle is Newcastle, and they are a bit of an anomaly this year, but we want to finish as high as we possibly can.
"We want to make sure we are right up there and showing we can still compete with the majority of teams in the league, and today was a great platform to start doing that.
"The girls have prepared really well. Now, heading into next week, that hoodoo is off our backs with the first league win of 2024.
"We can now hit the ground running into the next two weeks, which will be really tough."
On Thomas starting in goal and keeping a clean sheet
"You can ask the girls in the changing room. I said at the start that the focus today was a clean sheet, and that was my challenge to them.
"With players of Beth, Jade, Amber, Destiney and Tammy, with all those players in the group, you are always going to create chances to score goals.
"My focus was on the clean sheet because we are trying to go back to the basic principles that has seen have seen us have success over the last few weeks, and clean sheets is one of them.
"To get that today was key, I thought we defended resolutely, and as I have said, the goals will always come in this team because there is quality everywhere, so I am delighted with that."
