Ffion Morgan’s spectacular strike proved enough for Bristol City as they held on to claim a 1-0 victory over Southampton in FA Women’s Championship action.
Morgan’s stunning strike 18 minutes in was the only goal of the contest, with the Robins having ‘keeper Fran Bentley to thank for a string of stunning saves throughout, in particular denying Southampton's Beth Lumsden on numerous occasions.
Victory sees the league leaders stay six points clear at the top of the table with four games to go and the visit of second bottom Sheffield United to the Robins High Performance Centre on Sunday.
"We asked for a team performance and we got it," head coach Lauren Smith said. "It wasn't pretty at times. We had to go and clear our lines, defend well and manage the time well, it was a great team performance and I'm proud of it.
"We've spoken on a number of occasions about our clean sheets and how important they are and I think you can see that with the saves Fran Bentley made. The team thrive off those moments as well because it was a tough game where we had to defend really hard and then get up after the long balls at the other end.
"As a group we wanted to make sure we responded to the defeat last week and what a way to make that happen."
Southampton were on top early on and could have opened the scoring just fourth minutes in, Beth Lumsden just unable to get onto the end of Ella Morris’ cross.
However the visitors were ahead inside 20 minutes thanks to Morgan, her stunning volley from 20 yards out kissing the bottom of the crossbar and nestling in the back of the net.
Saints continued to push throughout the rest of the half, Lumsden seeing a strong shot stopped by ‘keeper Bentley, though the Robins nearly doubled their lead in the final moments of the half. Morgan’s cross took a heavy deflection off a Southampton defender and looked to be heading in, though was eventually bundled away.
Bentley’s keeping was proving crucial for the visitors in the opening stages of the second half for Bristol, pulling off a string of crucial saves - one again from a Lumsden shot - to keep her side ahead.
She also comfortably dealt with a speculative long-range effort from Alice Griffiths, while with just over ten minutes to go did enough to put off Katie Wilkinson, who could only hit the side netting. And she pulled off a couple more stunning stops to seal all three points in the dying moments.
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