Town Women held out until the final minute against WSL London City Lionesses at the JobServe Community Stadium last night and Asif Burhan spoke to Blues manager David Wright, defender Kenzie Weir and London City skipper Elena Linari after the match.

Ipswich Town Women may have lost for the first time this season last night, but in defeat they won many admirers for the way they defended against one of the top sides in the WSL.

It took a 90th-minute winner from Daniëlle van de Donk to earn London City Lionesses a 1-0 victory in their Subway Players Cup match. Defeat doesn’t end the home side’s participation in the league phase but it did deny them the opportunity to take their big-spending opponents to a penalty shoot-out in Colchester.

Head coach David Wright was full of praise for his team after the game: “The overall feeling is that I thought the girls were outstanding, I’ve just said that to them.

“In moments like this, I’ve said to the girls how proud I am working with them because the behaviour bit is really important to me. Just their desire to compete, their desire to be really disciplined in terms of holding their shape and fighting and pressing - it’s absolutely outstanding, absolutely outstanding.

“It’s such a great base for me to build from. So, over the moon and they didn’t deserve that, they didn’t deserve that one at the end.

“It just shows you, when you are playing against some of the best players, they don’t even need half a chance. They just need a slight little door open to crack and they’ve got the quality then to step through it and punish you.

“Really pleased with the girls, just feel a bit sorry for them that they didn’t get right to the end and take it to a penalty shoot-out and get what they deserved.”

Van de Donk’s goal was only the third shot on target the visitors had during the entire game, despite dominating possession, a testament to how well the defence protected their goal.

Wright added: “It starts right from the front as well. I think out of possession as well, it’s a choice and the girls worked their absolute socks off to earn that, to not give them any clear opportunities. They must have had 20 corners - we dealt with them all. Like I said, those bits were outstanding.”

Having used the match to rotate his squad and hand out first starts of the season to several players, Wright didn’t want to single out any one performance.

“I thought they were all great, we got so much out of them tonight,” he said. “Not just collectively but individually.

“Some of the girls needed some minutes. Some of the girls like Mary [McAteer], who’s obviously come to us [on loan from Charlton], had a disruptive pre-season, gets a good 70 minutes. Ros [Ayane] as well up the top, gets a good 70 minutes, she hasn’t had a pre-season.

“So, for those individuals to miss a pre-season and perform at the level they did is great, a great sign for us.

“All the other girls making their debuts or catching up with game-time, in terms of me managing a squad of players like that, it’s definitely giving me some headaches [in terms of team selection], which is a great problem to have because the level of performance was really good.”

No one defended the Ipswich Town goal better than centre back Kenzie Weir (pictured), one of two players who also started the previous WSL2 match against Wolves. With her dominance in the air and bravery in throwing herself in front of shots, she ensured that goalkeeper Natalia Negri only had to make two saves in the entire match.

Weir slammed the turf in frustration as Van de Donk’s winner bounced down off the crossbar and over the line.

“Really disappointing, you can’t give people like that them sort of opportunities,” she said. “I think for 89 minutes, we did really limit them but I think when they get an opportunity like that, we’ve got to do better.”

Weir also revealed that Town’s behind-closed-doors matches against WSL sides in pre-season had prepared them well for the incessant pressure they faced last night.

“I think we’ve come up against really, really good sides in pre-season, She added. “We’ve faced similar things to tonight where we didn’t have a lot of the ball but we had to defend and defend really well, which we did.

“I also think we also built a bit of identity on the ball, which I think you’ve seen in the league.

“When you come up against teams like this today, you do just sort of have to nullify them and work really hard and allow them to have the ball. When we have the ball, we need to be a bit more calm. We worked really hard in pre-season to play against teams like this tonight.”

London City Lionesses captain Elena Linari also paid tribute to Town’s players: "As an Italian player that loves to defend the box very well, I think that they were always there, they played very well.

“I loved how they were celebrating every stop that they had in front of the goal. I think this is also a great mentality for them. When someone is doing something well, I think you have to recognise it and say so, so congrats to them.

“I hope that they can keep going in this way for the league and maybe next season we can see them in WSL.”

Weir admitted: “That’s nice to hear. Like I said, that’s part of our identity. We’ve been building that really since Wrighty came in in January. You’ve probably seen that in games where we defend really well and we work for each other and celebrate the little wins and try and just try and gather a little bit of momentum and we did that again - I was really proud of the girls.”

Ipswich Town return to league action on Sunday with a trip to Sheffield United before another game in the Subway Players Cup away to Wolves following the international break.

Weir says they won’t prioritise any one competition: “We want to do well in everything. In the league, if it’s in the cup. We want to do our best, really show ourselves against good opponents whether it’s WSL or WSL2.”

Photo: Asif Burhan