Norwich City Women: Shannon Shaw interview on promotion push.

Norwich City striker Shannon Shaw says the Canaries need to concentrate on themselves as they push to reach the third tier this season.

Andy Cook’s squad is now one point behind table-toppers Real Bedford, with only the league champions promoted from the FAWNL Division One South East. Bedford also has two games in hand, but Shaw feels City should focus only on their next five games in a race that might come down to the wire. “You’ve got to just take each of game as it comes, stay in the present and just work week by week,” she told the Pink Un newspaper. “Work in training, work on Sundays, give it your all, and that’s all you can truly do.

“I believe this is a tight race. I believe it will come down to the final game of the season, like it did last season. It was possibly a goal difference, so we just have to keep working hard and hopefully we can simply build those points.” Norwich initially appeared to have tumbled out of the promotion race, with three successive league defeats leaving their prospects in shreds by the end of 2024. Shaw, on the other hand, can feel the benefits of the three weeks without a game and credits it with their new-year improvement in form.

“Before the Christmas break we had a bit of a lull, but I think the break did us some good,” she told me. “We came away from there feeling a lot more refreshed, and that did us some good. “I guess it was just fatigued legs and heads. You just reach a moment in the season where you need a break, and I believe it helped us come back feeling ready to continue. It certainly worked, and since January, everything has just clicked.

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