Carl Morrison felt Gateshead Ladies played their ‘best football of the season’ in Sunday’s win over Consett Ladies.
Morrison and Hugo Djassi’s side struck three times inside the final 10 minutes to secure a 5-2 win over Consett Ladies on home turf, and move fourth in the league table in the process.
Goals from Sharon Bell, Caz Campbell, Liv Black, Jade Halliday and Holly Orr saw The Heed through on a wet and windy day on Tyneside, despite going behind twice in the opening 17 minutes.
“I thought we were really good in the end,” said Morrison.
“We had a very slow start and Consett punished us with a really good strike from outside the box, but I think that woke us up.
“After that, we were really good and it was some of the best football we’ve played all season.
“We knew it would be a really tough game because we had a life and death game with them at their place earlier this season where we got a last-minute equaliser.
“We knew we’d have to be on it, and the way we played got us through.
“We’ve got goals everywhere, two girls came off the bench and got a goal each and both of our strikers got goals themselves.
“Jodie [Thorpe] had a shot tipped over the bar as well, so we do get bodies forward and we have threats in many different positions.”
One of the most pleasing aspects of Sunday’s performance from Morrison’s perspective was that the players took matters into their own hands after an uncharacteristic start, with captain Carly Salmon leading the way.
“Carly especially was quite vocal in telling the team that they needed to look livelier and wake up a bit,” Morrison added.
“That’s one of the biggest things that Hugo and I have highlighted since we’ve been involved.
“The team has needed to communicate more at times, and that has started gradually happening more and more.
“We want everybody to be communicating on the pitch and offering, advice, instruction and encouragement to each other, like your captain letting you know that you need to step it up.
“It’s good to have the girls giving that advice to each other on the pitch, because it does make a massive difference.”
Focus this week has turned to the final fixture of 2023, with Gateshead Ladies travelling to eighth-placed Bishop Auckland Ladies on Sunday afternoon (2pm kick off).
“They’ve got a nice 3G pitch, which is a surface we like to play on, so we’re looking forward to going there,” said Morrison.
“Another three points would be huge – it would give us four league wins in a row if we were able to do that.
“Hopefully we can get a win and give ourselves a good platform to and keep moving up the table and finish as high as we can.”
