The Canaries put on a dazzling display in their FAWNL League Cup determining round fixture away to Cambridge United with goals from Shannon Shaw, Natasha Snelling and Jodie Drake.
The game was competitive from the off with Norwich enjoying much of the early possession and territory and Cambridge favouring the counter.
The Canaries tested and teased with a number of crosses in the opening stages and, on the nine-minute mark, one would prove fruitful. Recycling the ball on the right-hand side, skipper Anna Larkins curled a lovely ball into the path of Shaw, who opened the scoring inside 10 minutes.
Cambridge made efforts to respond, but were restricted to efforts from distance, causing Bryony Williams little issue. Norwich continued to patiently swing the ball around and found joy when breaking with pace.
In the 36th minute, defender Ceri Flye darted down the profitable right side, playing into Olivia Cook, who would find Shaw with an inch-perfect cross to double the lead and her personal tally.
Norwich looked comfortable heading into the half but nearly slipped up three minutes before the interval. Cambridge played some fine football to put Sarah Wiltshire through, but Williams was alert to the danger to make the stop.
In the second half, Shaw continued to torment, making driving runs into the box in search of a third.
On 49 minutes a Norwich corner caused problems, but when the ball fell to Megan Todd at the back post, the winger was caught surprised and could only guide the half-effort header onto the bar.
The second half brought wholesale changes with all five substitutes being called to action and paying dividends too. Three minutes after being called upon, Snelling capitalised at the back post for Norwich’s third of the day.
Cambridge made the efforts to react accordingly, opening up and attempting to apply some attacking pressure of their own, but this left pockets for Norwich to exploit.
With 10 minutes to play, City broke away with a four-on-two opportunity with substitute Rachel Lawrence as the driving force. Lawrence saw the numerical advantage and unselfishly teed up Drake to fire home for four.
Two minutes on Norwich had a carbon-copy opportunity and it was a carbon-copy outcome, this time Lawrence providing for Snelling for the fifth and the icing on the cake.
Norwich will look to take this positive momentum into next Sunday when they face London Seaward at The Nest in the FAWNL.
Norwich City: Williams, Parker, Flye, Todd, Larkins, Knights, Symonds (Drake 76), Morran (Daviss 71), Tomlinson (Strauss 60), Shaw (Lawrence 63), Cook (Snelling 56)
Goals: Shaw (9, 36) Snelling (59, 85) Drake (83)
Cambridge United: Webb, Otten, Kosky, Wiltshire, Stojko-Down, Fox, Collins, Rodgers, Jackson, Steele, Wood
Subs: Seymore, Jean-Simpson, Naylor, Morley, Cheal-Ferris
HT: 0-2
FT: 0-5