WANDERERS Women are just one victory away from securing the league title after passing a significant test in Penrith with flying colours.
The league leaders remain undefeated after 20 games and need only to beat second-placed Accrington Stanley at home next Sunday to secure promotion and silverware.
The two clubs also meet on Thursday night (7.30pm kick-off) at the Leyland County Ground in the Challenge Cup final in what promises to be a defining week which started off in glorious style with an 8-3 victory in Cumbria against the only team to have taken points off the Whites so far.
Manager Myles Smith says his squad has to maintain focus if they want to finish the season off in style, with a final game due to be played at the Toughsheet Stadium against Preston North End.
“The mindset is the same,” he said. “We said before the (Penrith) match that if we’d drawn or lost, it wasn’t a league deciding game, it just added points to the tally and made it that little bit easier.
“We’ve got two games now against Accy, one in the cup final and one in the league, and we’ll take one at a time.
“What’s important because of the conditions and the distance we’d travelled is making sure we recover right, recover well, it’s a busy week but we’ll put everything we can into those two games and we’ll continue to do everything we can to make this club proud.”
A long journey up the M6 to Penrith looked a potential stumbling block for Bolton, and they made a poor start, conceding twice in the opening 11 minutes.
Maddison Hardman had briefly levelled the game at 1-1 but Neshai Gordon then restored parity just before the half-hour mark and Eboni Bradshaw put the Whites ahead, converting from Eleanor Seals’ corner.
Gordon then converted a penalty she won after the break, steadying the nerves, and though the home side got themselves back within a goal at 4-3, another goal apiece for Gordon and Hardman put the game quickly out of sight.
Hardman then completed her hat-trick with Bradshaw also netting her second of the afternoon to send out a message with the scoreline and leave manager Myles Smith purring with praise.
“I am buzzing,” he said. “That game has been in the back of people’s minds for a very long time and when we start a game like we did, the first 25 minutes, you wonder if it is going to be one of those days.
“But the resilience and the character that the team showed was unbelievable.
“The last thing we said to them was ‘be that big game player’ and to show the character that we think you all have. They did, and I am delighted for them.
“When you go behind twice in a game it is very easy to start getting frustrated, start doing your own thing and to come off script, and again they haven’t done that. They got around each other and when we actually got into the flow of how we play we were unbelievable.”
Smith brought Hardman back into the side from the start, with Jess Lightfoot serving a suspension for a red card picked up against Morecambe the previous weekend.
“She was class and came in again after a couple of weeks out,” he said. “She had been frustrated a couple of weeks ago when she wasn’t involved but she came in and got herself a hat-trick. It wasn’t just the goals, her movement and energy was absolutely unbelievable.
“I said a few days back, it won’t be one player that wins the game, or the season, it’ll be 27 that we have and every single one of them has been absolutely class.”
Ocean Flanagan also made an eye-catching debut off the bench in the second half, having been snapped up from rivals Accrington Stanley last month.
“She’s a player and showed a little bit of what she’s going to bring to this team,” said Smith. “We signed her for next season, really, but the fact we got a little look here today gets the team and the staff excited because she was unbelievable. Just the detail on what she does, she was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet, but she should be really proud of that debut.”
