Gemma Grainger hailed her Wales side's strength in depth during their 1-1 draw with Finland and has challenged her players to " show everybody why they should be starting in this team".
Wales were forced to share the spoils with Finland after Eveliina Summanen’s second-half penalty cancelled out Carrie Jones’ first-half tap-in from Jess Fishlock’s cross.
Grainger made one change to the side which started against Switzerland in October's World Cup play-off final defeat, with Lily Woodham coming in for the injured Ceri Holland, but the second half saw Grainger bring in a raft of fresh faces in the shape of Olivia Clark, Ffion Morgan, Megan Wynne, Charlie Estcourt and Elise Hughes. It is that strength in depth which Grainger is gunning to develop as Wales bid to reach a first-ever major tournament, with qualifiers for the 2025 Euros due to begin next September.
"I have no doubt in my mind that those players you saw come into the game they will make my decision harder when we come back in February and that’s what I want to challenge them to do," Grainger said after the match. "I want them to come back and show everybody why they should be starting in this team because we want to create that environment here where our starting XI isn’t predictable, and how we prepare to make that more competitive moving forward is definitely a focus of mine."
A chary first half punctuated by few chances and little quality was finally injected with some sense of decorum from Fishlock, who danced around the Finland defence just after the half-hour mark to fire a low, hard cross into the box which nicked off Rachel Rowe and gifted Carrie Jones the easy task of tapping in at the back post for her second international goal.
Wales had struggled to break down a well-organised defence from Finland, who showed glimpses of the risk they posed on the counter, though an overriding toothlessness plagued any chance of early execution.
Despite the goal imparting Wales with a sense of urgency in the closing stages of the first half, it was Finland who emerged after the interval intent on imposing their dominance. Anna Signeul’s side exploited Wales’ paucity in creativity and sloppiness in possession, and the mounting pressure told 20 minutes from time as Rhiannon Roberts was adjudged to have handled a cross in the box. Olivia Clark, who replaced Laura O’Sullivan between the sticks on the hour mark, could do little to keep out Summanen’s coolly taken penalty down the middle.
Finland continued to probe for a winner but a dogged Wales defence spearheaded by Gemma Evans and Hayley Ladd thwarted their better efforts. In a rare Wales attack on the 90th minute, Sophie Ingle teed up substitute Ffion Morgan who made a searing run in from the right wing but the move was flagged offside.
While Grainger acknowledged a lack of consistency in attack, she maintained that key progress is being made and praised her side's reliable tenacity off the ball to facilitate it.
"The way this team digs in and defends, we are not easy to beat and any team that plays against us will have to do a lot to create opportunities," she said. "The grit, the determination, there is nothing easy about playing us. So from an out-of-possession perspective of course we want the ball more but you see game by game, we get better and it’s about that. We want progression in possession and out of possession maintaining our standards."
Wales will play a friendly against Finland behind closed doors next week to round off the year.
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