Oxford United defender Sahara Osborne-Ricketts believes her team are capable of emulating Saturday’s opponents Doncaster Rovers Belles and winning promotion to FA WSL 1 next season.
The Belles are guaranteed a top-two finish, along with Reading, following their 2-1 defeat of London Bees at the weekend and will play in WSL 1 next term provided they can meet FA licensing criteria.
Oxford have made a marked improvement on last season’s ninth-place finish and head to the Keepmoat Stadium fifth in the WSL 2 table with double the number of points attained throughout last term.
Doncaster Rovers Belles v Oxford United
FA Women's Super League with BT Sport 2
6.30pm, Saturday 3 October
Keepmoat Stadium
And Osborne-Ricketts says the next step is to follow the Belles’ lead and look towards The FA Women’s Super League with BT Sport top flight.
“We have improved massively since last season to this season and hopefully going into next season we can keep on improving and move up the table as much as possible,” said the 24-year-old centre back.
“We have seen how well Doncaster have done this season in the league and with more teams getting promoted to WSL 1 it means we have an incentive to work harder.
“Hopefully if we improve as much as we did, we can get promotion secured for next season.
“The match against Doncaster will definitely be a tough fixture, they are a great team.
“They will want to get as many points as they can in the league to show how well they have played this season.
“They definitely will not give in to us as they have proved over the season how dominant they are.
“We will need to make sure we can play how we like to play as it will be really tough.”
With their place in the top two assured, the target left for Doncaster is to try and win the title.
With two matches left to play Belles are three points clear of Reading, though they have played a game more and have an inferior goal difference.
And striker Courtney Sweetman-Kirk has her eye on the big prize.
Courtney Sweetman-Kirk celebrates after scoring against London Bees
“For us it is just about getting the three points," said Sweetman-Kirk, who has hit 25 goals this term. "The league is very close and it will probably go down to goal difference on the last day.
“However that makes it exciting for the neutral watching the games.
“I do think home advantage is good, our fans follow us but with them being there at home it does make the difference.
“We have a fantastic pitch, it suits our style of play really well and with the fans cheering us on it is great.
“We are quite confident with a home fixture and with the fans in the stands that will give us the push to get over the line.
“We need to be clever to exploit their weaknesses and play to our strengths. If we keep playing the way we have been playing we can get the three points.”
