Beth Merrick admitted her dramatic stoppage-time equaliser meant Aston Villa’s FA Women’s Super League 2 draw with high-flying Bristol City felt like a victory.
All the goals came in the last 15 minutes in the 2-2 draw, as the Vixens twice went ahead through fine strikes from skipper Jodie Brett and Reading loanee Charlie Estcourt.
But Villa sub Tash Baptiste’s cool finish and Merrick’s last-gasp header brought the home side level on both occasions, with the draw preventing Bristol from going level on points with Yeovil Town at the league summit.
Aston Villa 2-2 Bristol City
The FA WSL 2
Tuesday 28 June 2016
Sutton Coldfield Central Ground
By Michael Beardmore
And Merrick insists if Aston Villa continue to put in these kind of performances against the FA WSL 2’s best sides, the sky is the limit in terms of how far they can go this season.
"When you are playing a top team like Bristol you want to come out of the game with something, and there’s no better feeling than scoring so late," she said.
"It felt like scoring a winner rather than the equaliser. Unfortunately it wasn’t a winner but one point is better than none.
"We’ve played Bristol twice now this season and we’ve matched them both times, so it shows that we can compete with the best. It’s just about whether our consistency is good enough really.
"Our target has always been promotion and with some of the results you see coming in, it’s a topsy-turvy league and anything can happen.
"The massive thing for us is being clinical. We can outplay teams, we can dominate teams but if you do that for 90 minutes and don’t score, what’s it worth?
"That’s been the story of our season really, so it was really nice for us to get two goals tonight. Maybe we could have had more but it was the same for both teams so we are happy with a point."
Meanwhile Bristol City’s Megan Alexander admitted the side were heartbroken to concede so late on and let the chance to go joint-top of FA WSL 2 slip through their fingers.
But the defender remained upbeat and is confident the side will learn from the setback, with so many games still remaining in the league to overhaul West Country rivals Yeovil.
She said: "The game was end-to-end but I thought we defended well right up until the last minute, and obviously it hurts to concede so late on.
"When they levelled but we then scored straight away, I thought that was it then. We just had to hold out for a few minutes but we conceded in the last second. Hopefully we’ll learn from it.
"The first half was pretty even, but in the second half I felt like we had a lot of possession. Fair play to them for not giving up and keeping going until the last minute.
"We could have drawn level with Yeovil tonight had we won, so with them being our rivals it hurts even more, but it’s a long old season and we have loads of games left.
"We will go back and regroup and I’m sure we will come back even stronger. We’ve dropped points tonight but promotion is our main goal and we will keep going until the end of the season."
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