HIBS LADIES captain Joelle Murray is hopeful that her team can replicate their impressive cup form in the SWPL next year and halt Glasgow City’s run of consecutive league titles, which reached eleven just a couple of weeks ago.
Hibs have been unbeatable in cup competitions in recent seasons having won the past two Scottish Women’s Premier League Cups, as well as last year’s SWF Scottish Cup. They continued that run on Sunday, defeating their great rivals Glasgow City 3-0 in an utterly dominant display at Livingston’s Toni Macaroni Arena to retain the Scottish Cup and Murray was colossal throughout the ninety minutes, being deservedly named ‘Player of the Match’.
She was on an understandable high having led her team to yet another trophy but quickly, thoughts turned to why the Edinburgh side are practically invincible in cup competitions yet have not been able to produce their best in the SWPL with the Edinburgh side losing every league meeting between the two sides this year.
The Glasgow side defeated Hibs 3-0 just a few weeks ago to clinch their record-breaking eleventh consecutive league title and Murray admits to being somewhat flummoxed as to the reason for this turnaround. “I can’t put my finger on what’s different between the leagues and the cups,” she said. “I just hope that we can go into next season and produce performances in the league like we did in this cup final. It feels absolutely brilliant to win this cup again - it was ours to retain so to do that with such a magnificent performance is unbelievable.”
One of Glasgow City’s assets has been the strength-in-depth of their squad but Murray disputes the assertion that Hibs are lacking in this area. Injuries to a number of key players hampered their league campaign this season and the 31 year-old defender is optimistic that with those players back to full fitness next year, her team will have an excellent opportunity of stopping Glasgow City’s reign. “We need to be more consistent next season,” she said.
“We need to train well and perform well and believe in ourselves going into the matches against Glasgow City in the league because we’ve shown that we can more than match them.
“I do think we have enough depth. In this final and for the last few games we’ve been missing Lucy (Graham) and for the majority of the season we’ve been missing Lizzie (Arnott) and also Claire Williamson so if you take those three players into consideration, on top of the squad we had available for this final, I think the depth is there.
“Once we get everyone back playing, there’s no doubt that we can replace quality for quality. The league was the one that we wanted to really go for this season but to finish on a high by winning the Scottish Cup was great.
“I’d like to think that we can take great hope and belief from this and our other Cup performances and take that into the league next season.”
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