Norwich City Women’s head coach Shaun Howes says the team’s opening day defeat to Billericay Town will serve as a steep learning curve.
The Canaries lost the match 8-0 at The Nest on Sunday as seven made their debut for the club. It was the first time those players were playing at South East Division One level and Howes admitted that the pace of the game took them by surprise and led to a nervous performance that was riddled with errors.
“I think they were really, really nervous and I think they were a little bit shell-shocked,” he said. “The pace of the division they were in, caught them out and it was difficult. I think for the seven new starters it was tough for them, but we had to do that because of injuries and unavailability.
“There was an early goal that went in against us, which came from a mistake, and after the players were just so nervous about making another mistake; that they made more mistakes. I think all four of Billericay’s goals first half were from when we were in possession and from us making mistakes and silly errors. I think the occasion got to the players a bit more than we thought it would.”
Billericay are expected to be one of the teams battling for promotion this season, but for the Canaries’ are aiming to be in the top half of the division as well. Therefore, Howes says they will have to learn lessons quickly going into Sunday’s away fixture at London Seaward.
“I think there will be two or three players that will be available this weekend that were out for Billiericay, but there will still be three or four who are unavailable or injured,” he said.
“However, I think the experience and disappointment of Sunday will be a massive help as well because they won’t want that to happen again, and they will understand that and when we were organised, we were okay. It is when we made silly mistakes that it cost us, but it is a massive learning lesson that we have got to learn from, but not dwell on, because we can’t let that one result define our season, which it won’t.
“We are going to regroup Wednesday, have a chat and then forget about it but we won’t forget about that feeling we had after the game because we need to keep hold of that feeling so it doesn’t happen again.”
Norwich City Women are back in action on Sunday away at London Seaward. Follow the action at the Norwich City Women FC Twitter account.