AFTER beating Lye Town Ladies 6-0 at the weekend, Burton Albion Ladies head into the second round of the Birmingham Senior Cup against Coventrians Ladies in a confident mood this coming Sunday (3pm kick-off).
The match will be played at Lichfield City FC, rather than the traditional home venue of Rocester FC. With Rocester's first team using the Hillsfield pitch on Saturday, this will give Albion the best chance of getting the game on.
The Brewers comfortably beat Lye last weekend with Natasha Rothery scoring two of the goals, and Rothery felt content with the way the girls played last weekend.
“It went well," Rothery said. "We got the ball on the floor, played football, scored goals. What more do you want?
“The fact that we’ve gone out last weekend with a win has probably played in our favour because spirits are high. We’re looking forward to coming into training and working hard to hopefully get another win on Sunday.”
After scoring goals last season from centre-back for a lower league team, Rothery is hoping to add to her tally for the Brewers in the upcoming games.
“Traditionally, I’m a centre-back so I shouldn’t really be a goalscorer! I think it’s becoming a little bit more natural (for me) to get shots off and having the opportunity to do that and hopefully score more goals is what I’ll be looking to do."
Before the Lye victory, The Brewers were left frustrated as two consecutive weekends saw matches scheduled against Lye called off due to the bad weather.
And Rothery has expressed her excitement at being able to play for the second weekend in a row.
“I’m quite excited (about the weekend's game), obviously because we were supposed to play every week," said Rothery. "Having three weeks off has sort of killed us a bit but we start as we mean to go on.”
Brewers manager James Billings was pleased with the way his team played last Sunday and hopes that they can improve on their performance this weekend.
“It was quite pleasing that they were very playing in professional manner, they did what they had to do, they made sure they came away with the win and they did that and they got us through to the next round,” Billings said.
“We’re looking to try and build on last weekend. Hopefully there is a little bit more of a buzz in training like we’re hoping to see because they’ve got that win.
“Hopefully for Sunday there is still that professionalism that we had from last week, (the coaches) are still trying to put in the main aims and objectives of what we’re trying achieve and then hopefully, again, we’ll be going through into the third round.”
However, the newly-appointed Brewers manager has expressed some frustrations after not having a league game for a few weeks.
“For me, it’s frustrating not having a league game. We are bottom (of the table) and I want to try and make sure that we get ourselves up there but at the same time we’re in a cup. Our main aim is to try and win matches.
“We’ve won one and hopefully we can go and win another one on Sunday and that breeds confidence and then hopefully we can take that into the league games when they come thick and fast.”
Brewers winger Ella Spears took a knock to her ankle last weekend but should be available for the weekend.
Striker Grace Browne is back doing light training so could be back in a few weeks while winger Hayleigh Sutton, who has been out for a few months, is also close to making a return to the side.