Gateshead Ladies picked up their third consecutive draw against Hartlepool Pools Youth Ladies last Sunday as The Heed looked for their first league win since their well-earned 2-1 win against Ponteland United in January.
Despite not coming away with all three points, manager Carl Morrison can still highlight his squad’s camaraderie as a key positive to take away from last week’s draw.
“I thought we played well, we always looked like the better team, playing well through the thirds, and creating a lot of chances,” he said.
“I think we can count ourselves unlucky that we haven’t come away with the three points again.
“We never stopped working for each other and pushed right until the end. They were clapped off the pitch by the fans when the girls came off at the end because I think everyone could see how hard the girls tried to get the win.
“Everybody had a good game, but more importantly, everybody put every ounce of effort in that they had.
“I think just taking that away, the togetherness of the group, how everybody worked for each other kept going till the end – we’ll just take that and build on it.”
Despite February being a tough month for results for Gateshead. Chloe Sharp’s exceptional defensive displays earned her the Player of the Month award for February – an accomplishment well overdue according to Morrison.
“Her [Sharp] performances have been good,” said Morrison.
“I think she can count herself unlucky to have not won a Player of the Month so far because she’s always been solid.
“What I’ll say about Chloe is she never misses a training session, never misses a match day, she’s very committed to the team, and she’s always looking to have conversations to make things better to push the team and push the group on.
“She’s been amazing all season – I can’t speak highly enough of her.”
The Heed will look to get back into the rhythm of winning on Sunday when they face Chester-le-Street United away from home.
The Wearside club has recently gained traction with consecutive victories against Hartlepool Youth and Bishop Auckland – leading Morrison to anticipate a challenging encounter ahead.
“They’ve had a right turnaround as a team, and they’ve had some really good results against good teams”, added Morrison.
“I know they’ve got a lot of youth there so it’ll be a really tough game on a grass pitch.
“We’ll just be going to look and do what we have been doing and trying to add what’s been missing.
“The only thing that I can think of being missing is that lack of composure to put the ball in the back of the net.
“We are working on that and once that comes then we’ll be good.
“If you look back at the stats from all the games we’ve played, we’ve out-passed teams, we have more shots, we’re in the green areas for everything that we do but on the most important stat – the goals scored column – we’re not as much on.
“We’ll just be working in that and continuing doing what we’re doing because we are really happy with how the team has been playing.”
