Perks pleased with confidence-boosting Billericay win

Argyle Women secured a place in the quarter-finals of the FA Women’s National League Cup, much to the delight of Head Coach Ryan Perks, after beating Billericay Town 2-1 at Home Park. 

Goals from Charlotte Whitmore and Georgia Wilson propelled the Greens to victory at the Theatre of Greens - taking the side into the last eight.  

“It's nice to get the win,” Perks told Argyle TV. “We spoke to the girls before the game about breaking the run of poor results and this will give us some confidence.    

“We spoke in the week about having a bit of consistency in the team and I thought most of the team did well last week against Ipswich for long spells. We did have some errors that cost us goals, but today, we didn't give away anything really.  

"Defensively we were solid. Billericay only had one or two shots, but I think the free-kick they scored from was probably a silly foul to give away on the edge of the box, and their player did what she's good at and scored. 

“Apart from that, I think they had one more shot which Lily [Felgate] had to save. Defensively we looked really good today.” 

Having a full week of preparation seemed to help Perks’ side. Coming from behind to win the game pleased the Argyle Head Coach and he is looking to take the positives from Sunday’s victory into an important run of games over the next month.  

He said: “We worked on certain things in training. We asked Ellie [Sara] to be a bit more solid and hold the ball up. I thought she was superb today for the 80 minutes she was on, and she linked up the play really well. 

“We’ve got pace on the counter through Charlotte [Whitmore], Ella [Stephens], Georgia [Wilson] and Lulu [Jarvis] and they give us that threat with that pace. I think we were rewarded with the quality on the ball. I think we had 20 minutes in the first half where the quality was lacking and we kept giving the ball back to a blue shirt, but we spoke about securing possession and being calmer with the ball and I thought we did that in the second half. 

“We probably should have had another one or two. Char hit the bar and post, so on another day she could have had a hat-trick. A win is a win, however. It's positive. We can take that, enjoy it today, but move on quite quickly to get some league points.”