Aberdeen Women let themselves down in 3-1 defeat to Motherwell, says forward Hannah Stewart

Hannah Stewart believes the Aberdeen Women players let themselves down in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to Motherwell.

The forward had given the Dons the lead at Cormack Park on 40 minutes through a penalty, but Carla Boyce equalised for Motherwell just before half-time.

In the second-half, Stewart gave away a penalty – which she admits was an “error” on her part – which Boyce converted to give Well the lead after an hour, before Kayla Jardine added the final blow with 10 minutes left on the clock.

Stewart concedes it was a disappointing second-half performance and the scoreline left the Dons squad feeling hurt.

The Aberdeen forward said: “It hurts because we know we’re better than that performance. We feel like we’ve let ourselves down.

“We go into half-time on a positive and we’ve got our goal and, even though they’d equalised, we felt if we went out fighting and ran for each other then the second-half would go our way.

“But we didn’t really get on the ball or get into any rhythm – we just reverted back to defending. We made it difficult for ourselves and struggled to get up the pitch to create anything.

“I think that’s the most frustrating thing: we felt like it was in our hands, but we just let it go by us.

“It’s a tough one to take.”

League split comes at good time, says Stewart

Aberdeen will play out the rest of their season in the lower half of the SWPL 1 table against Dundee United, Hamilton Accies, Spartans, Motherwell and Glasgow Women following the league split.

Stewart believes the league breakaway is an opportunity for the Dons to “put things right” and climb the table, with 30 points up for grabs until the end of the season.

She said: “There’s still a lot of points to play and a lot of games to go.

“I don’t think we feel like we’re in a relegation battle, because we know we’re good enough to beat the teams who are in and around us.

TABLES | Here's the updated SWPL table ⬇@ThistleWFC clinch their top-six spot with victory away to @dundeeunitedWFC 👏

Victories for the teams in the top four ✔@MotherwellWomen are victorious away to @AberdeenWomen but fall 1⃣ point short. pic.twitter.com/ROKJUFr2jn

— Scottish Women's Premier League (@SWPL) March 12, 2023

“It changes our mindset – we know we can go out and win every single game that’s coming up for the rest of the season.

“The split probably comes at a good time for us. We can go out and put things right.

“We know we’re capable of beating anyone in the bottom six, so I don’t feel like we’re in a relegation fight, because we know we’ll pick up those points if we play to our strengths.”