Late goal sees County into Cup Semi Final

The game looked destined for extra-time after Helen Ward and Melissa Fletcher had cancelled out goals by Aileen Whelan and Greenwood at Meadow Lane until the latter curled a stunning second effort with two minutes to go.

That put the Lady Pies, who lost the FA Women’s Cup final 1-0 to Chelsea last month, into the last four of the competition and Passmoor is eyeing another home draw.

“A home draw would be terrific and the Notts fans are our 12th man so that would be good,” he explained.

“It was great game for the neutral and we’ve now been in four semi-finals over the past two seasons, so it’s showing you the progress. We’re making small footsteps in the right direction but we need to improve. In the first half we should have taken our chances because we were in and around the area loads of times but there wasn’t enough people in the box.”

“We switched off for their equaliser and at times people weren’t doing their basic jobs correctly down the spine of the team.”

A cagey affair sparked into life just after the half hour mark as Whelan powerfully drove past Grace Moloney after good work from Jess Clarke but Reading hit back immediately as sloppy defending allowed Ward to tap in the equaliser.

The WSL 1 side were back in front just minutes later when a high foot in the box caught Ellen White in the face and Greenwood coolly dispatched the penalty.

The hosts had chances to kill the game off but their lack of cutting edge proved costly as Fletcher was allowed space to run and curl home a left-footed shot to level proceedings at 2-2.

Both sides had chances to snatch the tie but County’s increasing persistence eventually paid off as Greenwood curled a sublime shot past a despairing Moloney to seal her side’s place in the last four of the FA WSL Continental Tyres Cup.

And although their WSL 2 promotion push is still on track, Reading midfielder Bianca Bragg insists being eliminated from the FA WSL Continental Tyres Cup is a bitter pill to swallow. “We’re gutted, devastated, we thought we could hold it out for 90 minutes at 2-2 and take it into extra-time,” she said.  “Everyone put in a really good shift and we’ve worked so hard. I think it showed we can compete with other teams in WSL1 so next year, if we get there, we can hold our own.”

“We need to come here and prove to people we can hold our own against WSL 1 teams. We’re a fighting team and this was just a little warning that we are here. Our main focus now is to win all our games and we know we can do it because we do want to win the league.”