Preston North End Women progress to next round of FA Cup with comprehensive win at Deepdale

Preston North End Women have progressed to the next round of the FA Cup after a 5-1 win over Wirral United at Deepdale.

501 fans were in attendance as PNEFCW enjoyed a comprehensive victory in their first competitive game at the club’s home ground, in the second qualifying round of the cup.

Madison Hadley - who was the competition’s top scorer two seasons ago with 11 goals - broke the deadlock inside 20 minutes.

Wirral, who play a division below North End, equalised through Rebecca Tebb but PNE were soon back in front courtesy of Alicia Scott.

The hosts took full control in the second half as Kerry Mahon and Grace Flynn scored either side of Scott, who secured a brace.

The win means they will receive £3,500 in prize money. The third qualifying round takes place on Sunday October 4 with the draw expected to be made later on Monday.

Post-match, joint first-team coach Logan De Klerk told PNE’s website: “Such a special moment, special game. I thought the girls today were absolutely fantastic.

“From the first minute to the last minute, the way they applied themselves - not just today, in training, in the preparation for this - they’ve been fantastic and they reaped the rewards of that today.

“And to get to celebrate it with the fans in Deepdale, what can be better than that?”

Defender Kerry Mahon, who scored goal number three for her hometown club on Sunday, added: “If you’d have told me that before we started, that was the dream.

“Coming out and getting a win in front of our fans at Deepdale. It’s everything we wanted.”

PNEFCW play in the fifth tier of the English women’s football pyramid - the North West Women’s Regional Premier Division.

They won promotion as champions of the NW Women’s Regional Division One North last season and have big ambitions under management duo De Klerk and Cameron Molloy.

In an interview with the Lancashire Post last week, they outlined their aims for this season and beyond.

“We want to be playing against the best teams and the most difficult teams to play against,” Molloy said.

“That's how we learn, that's how we understand where the gaps are within our team. What do we need to do to improve? Is it the system? Is it the player recruitment? All these different aspects that we've got to take into consideration. The first seven games have brought out really clear things to us.

“We know what we need to do moving forward going into the latter stage of the season. No other team would have faced these adversities that we've faced. We've had quite a number of absentees through injuries.

“We've had squads that have been quite short within certain games. The players' mentality has been there to push on and compete, which has been fantastic for us from a philosophical aspect.

“We've played what would be the toughest games so far. We've got them out of the way. We know what we need to do to beat them next time.

“Now it's about pushing on and looking at the games ahead and seeing what we need to do to pick up the points and move up the table. All things at the moment look really positive.

“We know that we're here to stay within Tier 5 and we're here to push on and compete and gain promotion in the seasons to come.”

DeKlerk added: “I think we've shown that we can compete at this level, which has been the best part. Some results could have gone our way in many of them, especially the recent one against Mancunian Unity [3-2 loss].

“I think if decisions go our way, we come away with three points or at least one point. It's about now learning from those games.”

“We've got to learn and next time we go play against them, I think we'll do a lot better and come out with the right result.

“I'm really happy with how we've started. Yes, we could have more points, but we're sitting in a decent place and we feel in the next few games we're going to kick on and get back up into the top half of the league.”