The Tractor Girls fell behind early on after missing a great chance, with Mary Bashworth scoring in the third minute, but they responded well. Lucy Ashworth-Clifford equalised later in the first half, and the Blues pushed on to find a winner.
It wasn’t to be, however. Instead, they suffered heartbreak at the death, with substitute Rachel Brown well-positioned to fire into an empty net after two fortunate ricochets from a free-kick in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
“Really frustrated for the girls,” Wright said. “In terms of the performance level, I was really pleased.
“I thought, over the 90 minutes, since I’ve been in charge of the girls, that’s the best performance overall that we’ve put together. I thought we were dominant through most of the game, I thought we controlled Southampton really well and we carried a real threat in attack.
“So if you can put that all together and then you’re sat on the other side of a 2-1 defeat, it’s frustrating for the girls and it’s frustrating for the staff.
Wright was disappointed that the Saints weren’t punished for a late challenge at the start of the game (Image: Ross Halls)
There were clear question marks about Southampton’s winner and whether that was offside, but Wright was equally as disappointed by the decision for an early tackle from Tara Bourne on Princess Ademiluyi to go unpunished.
“It was difficult,” he admitted. “I thought something should have happened with that decision. I understand playing the advantage, I get that, but then it’s different, even if the player gets a yellow card. It’s a different game.
“When you’re playing and you’re on a yellow card in the first 30 seconds, you walk on a tightrope then. Psychologically it’s completely different, so that might slightly change her game.
“But it is what it is, the officials made their decisions and we can’t change it in them moments. We’ve got to accept what the decision was and we’ve just got to concentrate on what we’ve got to execute.”
The blow of the result is softened by Portsmouth’s 2-1 defeat at Sheffield United. There’s no real change in the relegation battle, with Ipswich ahead of rock-bottom Pompey on goal difference, but with two games in hand.
For Wright, that isn’t important at this stage, however.
“I’ve spoken to the staff and the girls a while back in terms of we’ve got to just concentrate on us and what we want to do and what we want to achieve this year,” he explained.
Rachel Brown’s stoppage-time strike won the game for the visitors (Image: Ross Halls)
“Don’t get caught up in looking around what other teams are doing. I think in terms of the girls putting a performance in like that, you can see where their focus is and we’ve got to continue doing that.”
Of course, focusing on the game has been difficult for many at the club this week. Town have been in the headlines following a visit from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, with chairman Mark Ashton apologising for the incident last night.
Wright has stressed that it didn’t distract from his side’s preparations.
“It’s been fine for us,” he admitted. “I’m a football coach and the girls are football players, so we concentrate on what our role is and what we’re supposed to do.
“It’s just been a normal week for us.”
It’s been good for everyone to focus on football once again, and this was a special day for Town despite the result. A crowd of 9,142 watched on, making it a great advert for the women’s game.
Wright hopes to see some make the trip to Colchester for the final two matches of the season.
“It’s been great, obviously, with the crowd that we’ve got,” he enthused.
A crowd of more than 9,000 attended the match at Portman Road (Image: Ross Halls)
“Hopefully the crowd, even though the result went against us, really enjoyed the girls’ performance, and we see a few more faces down at Colchester in a couple of weeks.
“Hopefully they’ve thoroughly enjoyed today, even though the result fell the wrong side for us.
“But if they can come down, we’ve obviously got really good support. If they want to come down and add to that, and cheer the girls to the end of the season, that’d be great.”