Steve Dale’s first game as permanent Wrexham AFC Women’s manager sees the Red Dragons take on bottom-of-the-league Denbigh Town.
Sunday’s match, which has been moved to Brymbo and kicks off at 2pm, will see Wrexham looking to build on back-to-back away wins against Llanfair United and Airbus UK Ladies.
Familiar face
The game pits Wrexham’s top scorer, Rosie Hughes, against her former team for the first time since switching in the summer.
Prolific striker Hughes scored 18 goals in just nine games for Denbigh in the COVID-shortened 2019/20 season and was in similarly stunning form in last winter’s friendlies – including four goals for Denbigh when they last met Wrexham. Wrexham won that high-scoring friendly 8-5.
This season, Hughes has netted 15 goals in ten competitive appearances for Wrexham – including the equaliser that sparked the comeback against Airbus last time out.
‘New’ man in the dug-out
Steve Dale takes charge of Wrexham for the first time as permanent manager, after two successful interim spells in charge this season. Since Mari Edwards’ departure earlier this month, Dale has overseen two wins from two away games to lift Wrexham into the top half of the table.
Previously, he enjoyed four wins in five games during his interim spell in charge of the team in the summer.
Making progress
Wrexham’s two wins have lifted them to fourth in the table, three points behind in-form league leaders Connah’s Quay Nomads.
Denbigh Town, by contrast, have endured a difficult start to the campaign and have conceded 45 goals already – leaving them winless at the bottom of the Genero Adran North league table.
We've Met Before
Wrexham’s most recent game against Denbigh Town was a friendly in 2020, as both teams briefly returned to action before COVID-19 forced another season to be curtailed.
Wrexham started in rampant form and were 3-0 up inside eight minutes, and led 6-0 just before half-time before Rosie Hughes pulled one back for Denbigh.
Denbigh improved after the break as Wrexham tired – Hughes scoring three more goals and Cara Jones adding another – but Jodie Richards finished the game with five for Wrexham, and Lauren Reese (two) and Lily Jones were also on target in an 8-5 win.
Team News
Del Morgan is unavailable for Wrexham, so Kat Jones will return in goal for her third league game of the campaign.
After suffering an injury playing for the Under-19s, Mia Roberts will also miss out but Wales Under-17 international Lili Mai Jones returns to the senior Wrexham squad. Jones scored twice in her only appearance so far, when she made her senior debut away to Bethel Ladies.
What they said
Manager Steve Dale said: “We’ve got to make sure we prepare the players properly. It doesn’t matter what position they are in the table – we have to respect them and make sure we do our job properly; and set the standards we have been recently.”
Keep Up
The match at Brymbo is free for spectators to attend. If you can’t attend, you can keep up with the action by following @WrexhamAFCWomen on Twitter.