Cobblers Women breeze into third round of the League Cup

Cobblers Women began 2022 with a 7-0 win at Sleaford Town in the second round of the League Cup on Sunday, writes James Wiles.

Alex Dicks scored a hat-trick and Leah Cudone, Alex Bartlett, Chloe Martin and Georgia Tear were also on target as Northampton eased into the next round.

Speaking after the match, joint-manager Lou Barry said: “We had lots of problems throughout the game and we solved them.

“I saw a lot of what we worked on in previous weeks.

“We understood what we needed to do in the second half and we ran riot.

“I’m really happy overall and there were some good individual performances out there.

“The most pleasing thing was that we controlled the game for long periods of time.”

Barry and Josh Oldfield’s side next travel to Bugbrooke St Michaels in the Northamptonshire FA Women’s Cup quarter-final.

The Badgers are bottom of the division that is currently topped by Northampton's Development squad.

Barry added: “We’re not the favourites for the County Cup but we believe we should be going on to win it.

“We also want to continue the momentum we’ve built up.

“We’ll work on things we want to improve on from today and we want to implement them next week.

“We’re excited for every game and we’ve got a great mentality to continue improving.”