WOMEN'S TEAM | Coach and captain hail Addicks' mental strength following cup final win

George Jones reports

Riteesh Mishra hailed the mentality of the Charlton women’s team after they came from behind to beat Tottenham Hotspur in Capital Cup final.

The victory saw the Addicks lift the trophy for the fourth successive season and First-Team Coach Mishra was full of praise for his side.

“It’s nothing more than we deserved,” he said. “Leading up to the game in the last couple of weeks - and since we lost to Spurs in the first final - the girls' response has been fantastic.

“We’ve worked hard in training, have tried a few different things and I’m so proud of every single one of them.

“They took everything on board that we worked on in training and, when we do things correctly, I think we showed that we are the better team.

“Tactically, we were very good. Technically, the pitch helped us and physically we were very, very strong.

"It’s all about character and mentality. This last month, when we’ve known that things have been fizzing away in the league, it’s been about whether the players could pick themselves up for the big games and they have shown that they certainly can.”

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The Addicks fell behind to Wendy Martin’s opening goal before Charley Clifford and Kit Graham turned the tie around.

Captain Kim Dixson echoed Mishra’s sentiment about mental strength being key to their response.

She said: “A month ago we may have rolled over and conceded another two or three goals. That didn’t happen, we’re buzzing to have won it and now our focus turns to our next final on the 7th of May.

“We didn’t deserve to go 1-0 down and I think we were the better team overall. It was a tight game but we created the better chances and we deserved to win it.

“We worked our socks off and every game we have had against Spurs has been different, as we expected.

“Our second goal was us all over; a great team goal. From back to front, we were excellent and it was a goal that was worthy of winning any cup final.”