Ewe Rams are able to plan for their return

DERBY County Women will restart their season on December 13 and manager Sam Griffiths cannot wait.

It has been confirmed that the Ewe Rams will return with a trip to Sunderland and Griffiths is pleased to be able to plan ahead again.

“It’s been a frustrating few weeks, I must admit,” she said. “We’d just started to build some momentum and then it all stops again but we’re all in the same boat so there’s nothing we could really do.

“Sunderland is our focus when we manage to get back to training and preparing for a tough fixture.

“We’ve managed to get lots of strength and conditioing sessions in over Zoom and keep ourselves going, working on our fitness and overcoming any niggles we might have had, so we’re in a good place and will be ready to go.”

Only the first half of the season’s fixtures were released when women’s football emerged from the first lockdown, with all teams scheduled to play each other once. Though that first half has yet to be completed, the remaining fixtures have now been released.

“Normally, we’d have had a good idea of when fixtures were coming for the whole season, though we are well aware that in the past there has been a lot of fluidity and fixtures could change.

“This year, with ensuring every team plays each other once in case there were further issues and we were not able to finish the season, it’s been nice knowing a set structure and planning ahead.

“The priority now will be to finish these first set of fixtures strong. We have three tough games with Sunderland, Huddersfield and Hull, but if we can come away with positive results, it’s going to put us in a good position for the second half of the season.

“Looking at those fixtures, Sunderland are different to previous seasons with a new-look side, Huddersfield are top and consistently solid throughout and Hull are coming off a good result at Forest and are improving all the time.”