Saints finish the season in fifth after 5-1 Motherwell defeat
St Johnstone Women finished the Scottish Women’s Premier League 2 season in fifth place following a final day defeat against Motherwell.
While it wasn’t how the Perth side had planned to end the year, head coach Jason McCrindle believes there is plenty to look forward to.
The league shuts down through the winter, but McCrindle and his coaching team are already looking at how to improve next season.
“We were second and third in the league at one point but the season petered out a little bit,”he said.
“In terms of the effort – and being the first season as St Johnstone – there are a lot of positives to build on for next year.
“We’ve taken the most points off the teams above us but again we still finished fifth.
“We’re improving, but the other teams are as well. We need consistency in terms of the team availability.
“We were badly hurt with injuries this year. When you look at the spine of the side, we lost four through long term injuries.
“I’m not making excuses but we couldn’t really get a consistent 11 on the pitch and that does hamper you.
“Now is the time when you start approaching clubs and players to speak to them.
“We’ve put a few approaches in to speak to players who we feel will improve us for next year.
“We’re hopeful they can come in and add to what we have already got. There is Jason McCrindle
no point in signing players for the sake of it. It’s about quality over quantity.”
Reflecting on the weekend 5-1 defeat to champions Motherwell, McCrindle added:“Second half we were good and competed a lot better.
“We lost three goals in four minutes and that knocked the stuffing out of us.
“At half-time we told them to be a little bit braver and they did that.
“We got a goal back and were unlucky at other stages of the game.
“The preparations were a little bit disrupted because Hannah Clark pulled up in the warm-up.
“We coped well but, as I say, a crazy four minutes lost us three goals.
“It’s disappointing considering how well we played against Motherwell the last two times.
“I was wanting to compete and win the game but it wasn’t to be.”