MARIEANNE Spacey-Cale admitted she was delighted with “the vast majority” of Saints’ match-winning performance at Championship leaders Crystal Palace.

The Women’s side picked up their first win of a new era following promotion to the second division, with summer signing Lexi Lloyd-Smith netting in both halves.

After Coral Haines equalised just before the half-time interval, Saints made Lloyd-Smith’s second count and held on at 2-1 at Selhurst Park to lift themselves into eighth.

It means Spacey-Cale’s side have only waited until their third game for a first victory, losing the opener and coming from two goals down to draw at Lewes last time out.

“Happy with the result and the vast majority of the performance as well so it’s a good day at work,” Spacey-Cale told the Daily Echo.

“You look at Palace being top of the table, we knew it would be a tough game going into it but we set the gameplan to manage their threats and we did that well in the first-half but really well in the second-half.

“The players took on board the information at half-time and showed really resilient defending after getting the goals to make sure we got the three points.”

She added: “We’re growing up in this league but we haven’t got time to grow up, we have to do it in every 90 minutes we play and we’ve got to mature into these games because this is another level to what a lot of the squad is used to.

“This is the first win and we’ve gone from a loss to a draw to a win so there’s maybe a little bit of inconsistency the league will throw at us but we’ve bounced back two games in a row and took the leaders to take three points off them.

“We’re learning how to compete in this league and we’re having to do it really quickly.”

Praising match-winner Lloyd Smith, who opened her account for Saints, Spacey-Cale continued: “Lexi is on the scoresheet but the whole team deserves the three points.

“Lexi has had a great start and she’s worked really hard both with and without the ball so she’ll take a lot of the plaudits, but there’s players in a whole squad effort that have got the three points.

“Delighted for Lexi to get her first goals for the club and delighted for the club as it’s a massive three points for us. I really enjoyed both the first-half performance and especially the second-half performance.”

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