Although pleased with the overall performance from his Wolves Women side in their FAWNL Cup win over Sporting Khalsa, Dan McNamara felt his players could have done more in front of goal.
Against their local rivals, McNamara described his team’s performance on Sunday as ‘routine’, but that didn’t stop Wolves from coming away from Willenhall with a 5-0 victory. However, the head coach wanted his side to display greater quality in attack and add more than the five they were able to score.
But with the first round win, Wolves booked their place in the last 16 of the competition and will now look to progress into the next round of the Birmingham Challenge Cup in their second of three consecutive cup matches this Sunday away at Hednesford Town.
On progressing into the last 16
“It was a fairly routine performance from the girls. They were good in moments and needed a bit more quality in other moments.
“But 5-0, away from home, on a small, tight astroturf – it’s always hard to play on here against Khalsa, they always put up a really good fight, so I thought the girls were really good in their overall performance.
“It was great to get people on the pitch and get minutes in people where they needed to be, so it’s really positive heading into next week.”
On scoring after 30 seconds
“They were fast out of the traps. You have to be quick and off the mark here, but I actually missed the goal because congratulations to my lad because he’s won the semi-final of the nationals in boxing up in Newcastle today, so I was just catching the end of that, and missed the goal.
“But Lee said it was an outstanding team goal and they moved it really well. It was a great start, puts us in a great position, but I thought that in moments, the girls could have shown more conviction and they coasted through a lot of the game – I think it’s fair to say.
“I wanted to see some real determination to score more goals, and we saw that in the second half. But overall, really pleased.”
On breaking down Khalsa
“We talked about how we knew they were going to sit in this fairly low block and try to catch us on the counter-attack, and it was just that. I don’t care who the team are, it’s hard to break down a low block and I thought Khalsa did it really well for large parts of the game.
“Elise [Stocking, on loan at Khalsa from Wolves] in goal made some great saves and claimed some really good crosses, but I always felt we needed to find that bit more quality.
“It was a great team move again for the second goal and that put us in a great place to move forward, so I’m delighted to get it in the end and then we can bring on the players who we know are going to score goals and they get on the scoresheet as well.”
"5-0 away from home, I thought the girls were really good."
— Wolves Women FC (@WolvesWomen) October 12, 2025
Dan McNamara on our victory in the @FAWNL Cup this afternoon ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/BZ3XZf27Cp
On Jenner’s first half injury
“It’s just a little bit something in her knee. She’s walking and she walked out of the stadium so there’s no real cause for concern.
“It was just one of them where we just don’t risk anything in a game where we don’t need to.”
On bringing firepower off the bench
“When we’ve got Amber [Hughes], Charlotte [Greengrass], Beth Merrick, KJ [Johnson], Anna Morphet all on the bench, it can be scary for the opposition and when Amber comes on the pitch, she scores goals.
“But I thought all round, the performances from off of those players who came on was good. Lynno [Harkin], we know what we can get out of her and we used her in the first half, a really solid and professional performance, and Charlotte’s involvement in the goals were really good, so really positive overall and we head into next week in a really good place.”
