Inverness Caley Thistle Women manager Karen Mason calls Championship ‘most interesting league in Scottish women’s football’ due to handful of title contenders
Inverness Caledonian Thistle Women manager Karen Mason believes the Championship is shaping up to be the most interesting league in Scottish women’s football
With just a handful of games left to play before the league splits into two, seven out of the 12 teams in the division will still believe they have a fighting chance of being called champions at the end of the season.
Caley Thistle are right in amongst that pack, currently sitting second in the standings after coming from three goals down to beat Stirling University 4-3 last Sunday afternoon.
However, with most other teams around them having the advantage of games in hand, Mason insists ICT have not thought too much about their title bid.
“It’s probably one of the most interesting leagues in the Scottish women’s game,” Mason said.
“It is so close, there isn’t a runaway leader. When the split comes in, I think those five games will be so important too, so it will very much be a way of sorting out the best from the rest.
“The league table doesn’t really come into our conversations though.
“There have been games where we have been top of the table with a chance to extend that advantage or stay there, and we’ve been beaten in those games.
“Winning the league isn’t something we really talk about. Our target for this year was to stay in the top four, and that’s still what we’re aiming for.”
Next up in the Caley Jags’ path to the top four is a trip to Dundee to take on Dryburgh Athletic this Sunday.
Even with many changes in the line-up of the Championship with teams earning promotion and relegation, ICT and Dryburgh are two of the division’s mainstays.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Mason feels she has a good idea of what to expect this weekend – and says the two clubs find themselves in similar situations.
“After last Sunday’s result, we should be confident,” Mason added.
“They’ve been getting decent results here or there, so they’re never a team we write off because they are always really sticky.
“They will have home advantage as well, so we have to be confident in ourselves but we won’t take them lightly.
“They’ve probably lost a few players that were mainstays. They’ve got a fairly young team, like ourselves, and they’ve had to embed new players in almost every season.
“I can understand why they are where they are, and they have players who get picked off by teams like Montrose and Dundee United which is a challenge that we don’t necessarily have.”
One drawback for Inverness is that they will be missing all three of their goalscorers from last week.
Captain Kirsty Deans, who scored twice to get ICT back in the game, will miss out with an ankle injury that forced her off the pitch against Stirling, while Tina Kelly and match winner Connie Bell are away.
