Inverness Caledonian Thistle identify Montrose as biggest challenge to league crown
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CALEY Thistle Women manager Karen Mason is tipping Montrose to be the Championship North title race dark horses.
ICTFC’s women’s team is planning a full-blown assault on promotion to the Scottish Women’s Premier League 2 this season.
But Mason, on the back of a superb opening day win over Westdyke last weekend, warned that several rivals will harbour similar hopes of landing the big prize.
Dunfermline made a stunning start of their own, thumping visiting Stonehaven 8-1.
But the collapse of Cove Rangers and the subsequent movement of their top players south to Links Park has not gone unnoticed in Inverness.
“The top four or five from last year will probably be similar this year,” Mason predicted.
“We’ve seen Cove Rangers dropping out and while we thought they would probably be challengers, Montrose have taken a lot of their players.
“I’d expect them to be our close competition along with East Fife, who are normally quite a stuffy and physical team.
“From the opening day results, Dunfermline also came through with a big win so we know they will be a danger.
“Everyone here is really fired up because we’ve set ourselves the challenge of going all out to win the title this year.
“We wanted to set a standard for ourselves and we did that on the opening day.”
Summer signing Lorna Macrae – back in the game after a six-year absence – struck four goals inside the opening 26 minutes to underline her importance to the team.
“Lorna is powerful, quick and a good finisher,” Mason stressed. “She came into the team and did exactly what we asked of her and has clearly lost none of the ability she showed us before.”
The Scottish shinty internationalist’s exceptional finishing was complemented by another goal from Kayleigh Mackenzie in the second half, with Westdyke hitting back from the penalty spot.
With Cove dropping out, Caley Thistle are unfortunate to have a blank Saturday this weekend, but Mason added: “We’ll make good use of the time.
“With the size of squad we have, we’ve been able to enjoy some good bounce matches which get everyone involved and avoid any extra Covid-19 paperwork.”
