Karen Mason reckons Caley Thistle Women can use Sunday’s Scottish Championship Cup tie against Edinburgh Caledonia for two purposes.
Firstly, a victory for her fifth-placed Championship side against their eighth-placed Scottish Women’s League One hosts would take them into round three.
However, it would also give the Highlanders a real shot of confidence ahead of next weekend’s league showdown at home to Hutchison Vale, who they can climb above in the table.
We have a break from league action this weekend as we turn our attention to the League Cup. A trip to the Capital to play @EdinburghCaley awaits 🏆 pic.twitter.com/86kpgbwylV
— Inverness Caledonian Thistle WFC (@ICTWFC) October 3, 2022
The Inverness team have settled into life in the new-look Championship fairly well, gathering seven points from seven games, most recently from a thrilling 3-3 draw at Ayr United on Sunday.
One eye on Hutchison Vale encounter
Boss Mason knows there is plenty of room for improvement from her squad and she insists victory would be a timely one.
She said: “It’s not too easy to read too much into results in Edinburgh Caledonia’s league and it will be a tie where we perhaps don’t know too much about them. We know they drew 0-0 with Airdrie last week.
“Hopefully though, we can put in a strong performance and progress through to the next round.
“We’ve been scoring plenty of goals, but our problem has been keeping them out at the other end.
“If we can put in a good performance in the cup that should further raise the confidence ahead of the league game the following weekend against Hutchison Vale.”
Edinburgh had to win their way into the second round and they did so by beating BSC Glasgow 3-0 last month.
Entertaining start to league season
Inverness have scored 19 and conceded 21 goals so far in the league and Mason insists they aim to sharpen up in a bid to improve.
She said: “We’re not far behind the chasing pack and it is still relatively early in the season.
“We play Hutchison Vale on October 16 and if we beat them, we would leapfrog them up to fourth, so that point gained at Ayr could prove more valuable than we thought it was at the time.
“It’s been an entertaining start to the season and we’re not far off from competing at the top end.
“Our own mistakes have cost us, but we know in the next round of games we should be doing a lot better and competing better than we have so far.”
Positive performance away to Ayr
The six-goal clash at Ayr United resulted in a well-earned point last week, although Mason explained they might well have headed north with a maximum haul.
She added: “We were 1-0 down, then it was 1-1 and we ended up 2-1 down at half-time and we went 3-1 down in the second half.
“We managed to pull it back and it was really promising that we kept fighting to get what we deserved from it. There were opportunities to even win it.
Well deserved Kayleigh 🔴🔵 https://t.co/WZqmd3oFvI
— Inverness Caledonian Thistle WFC (@ICTWFC) October 7, 2022
“We dominated the bulk of the possession, but a couple of breakaway goals gave them their advantage. Overall, it was a point well deserved, but it could and should have been more.
“When we went 3-1 down, Ayr probably didn’t think we’d be in with a shout, but every game in the league is so tight and it is difficult to predict what is going to happen.
“Renfrew and Dryburgh drawing, for example, was a top v bottom game, so it shows it’s a really competitive league.”
For the Edinburgh tie at Meadowbank Sports Centre, Laura MacIver is on holiday, Lorna MacRae is unavailable and Kirsty Deans is expected to miss out due to a rib injury suffered when playing shinty.
Striker Kayleigh Mackenzie, meanwhile, has been named in the Championship team of the month.
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