Three second half goals from Workington Town Women claimed the three points on offer and strengthened their push up the league table.
Early chances had fallen to Hayley Bracken and Ella O’Nions after good build up work and creativity had released them into space. Bracken had forced the Wrens keeper, Yasmin McClaren, in to a fine instinctive save to deny her and O’Nions was unlucky to find the crossbar from the right.
Despite the early dominance, Town went behind in the 13th minute after Emerald Parker had beaten the back line and forced a good save from Laura Miller. The ball fell kindly to Eve Dunn who was backing up and she slotted home effectively to take the lead.
Dunn was in action again around 15 minutes later, when she was alert to intercepted a back pass on the left.
Miller had been drawn out of her goal and the odds looked in the favour of Dunn to double Fleetwood’s lead, but a fine save from Miller denied her and preserve the single goal deficit.
This stirred the home side in to action, as they started to make promising connections and build positive passages of play.
This was rewarded in the 38th minute when Kirsten Donald was able to work the ball from a congested position on the right to find Nat Broad in space centrally.
Broad turned to face the Fleetwood defence before threading a pass through to meet Brackens threatening run. Bracken collected and set herself before unleashing a powerful strike across McClaren and into the right side netting.
The teams headed for the sheds at halftime with the score level and all to play for in the second half.
The break had served the home side well as they soon established a dominance that remained throughout the second half.
Good early pressure had seen the home side rewarded with a corner from Broad from the left in the 50th minute.
The ensuing clearance had found its way back to Broad who picked out Cassie Donald after the young midfielder had reacted intelligently to offer support. Donald shifted to set herself on the edge of the area before driving a powerful strike across McClaren to find the her left side netting and take the lead.
The lead was doubled in the 63rd minute and from a similar position on the left and with Donald pivotal again as she let rip again. McClaren managed to stop the strike but was unable to gather and fortunately for Town, Bracken was close by and reacted well to fire home.
The result was cemented in the 81st minute when a dipping free-kick on the right from Kirsten Donald found Keeley Chatters centrally. Chatters provided a moment of quality as she guided a strike on the half volley, into the goal leaving McClaren no chance of saving.
Kirsten Donald was awarded the player of the game award for another outstanding performance in the middle of the park.
After the game, manager Paul Mackenzie said: “We got off to a really encouraging start today and could have been ahead early on. I thought we seemed to lose our way after Fleetwood went ahead, but fortunately we were able to recover before the break to draw level.”
“We came out in the second half and delivered a performance that was more like the way we’ve been playing recently and to be fair, I don’t think we allowed Fleetwood the chance to offer much of a threat on Laura’s goal.”
