Livingston Women's boss Paul Jaconelli admitted he was 'ecstatic' after watching his side start their Championship South campaign with a convincing 3-0 home win over Edinburgh Caledonia.
Following a scrappy start, the hosts took near total control of the contest once skipper Vicky Wood opened the scoring just after the half-hour mark.
Kelly Mochan added a second on 73 minutes when she reacted the quickest to Jen Dodds seeing her effort bounce back off the bar before Dodds rounded out an impressive individual display with the third. A deft touch on the halfway line took her away from the defence before she raced through on goal and slotted home.
A delighted Jaconelli was full of praise, but insisted there's plenty of room for improvement.
Speaking to the Courier, he said: "I thought we looked a wee bit nervous at the start, but when we played our football you could see that we're a good side and in the end it was a comfortable win.
"We got a win and a clean sheet in our first game of the season, you can't be anything other than ecstatic about that.
"It's our first competitive game for 18 months and maybe it took a wee while to get out of friendly mode and into competitive game mode but they eventually got there. I told them before the game that Caley will be tough to break down and work hard for the whole 90 minutes. That's the sort of game you can lose so I'm glad we were able to see it out. You have to give credit to Caley because they made it really tough for us."
He added: "We were very convincing at points in the game and could have had more goals. There's certainly a wee bit of rustiness but also plenty of positives to take going forward. Jen's touch for her goal was tremendous and you could see in snippets that there's real quality to the team so it's just about getting up to speed, mentally and physically, where we can show it more often.
"We want to be quicker in possession and show that quality more often but that will come with game time, I'm sure. I'm delighted with the result and the performance but there's definitely more to come once we get a few more games under us."
Next up for the Lionesses is a trip to Stenhousemuir next Sunday with the gaffer predicting a tough challenge - and refusing to read anything into the fact they picked up the victory when the two sides met in a pre-season friendly.
He said: "Stenhousemuir will be a real tough challenge, and away from home. We beat them up here in a pre-season friendly but it will be a completely different game this time around.
"Getting the win means we can go into it with real confidence and belief and hopefully that will show."
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