A goal from former Hibs’ player Lizzie Arnot was enough to secure a narrow victory for the league leaders at the Rangers Training Centre yesterday.
Hibs started brightly and in the 14th minute Rachael Boyle’s cross to Eilidh Adams was cleared by Jenna Fife who fumbled the ball but managed to finally get it clear.
Midway through the first-half Shannon Leishman and Brianna Westrup clashed heads and both were able to continue after treatment.
Mutch then did well to save a header from Emma Brownlie who got on the end of a fine cross by Brogan Hay.
Two minutes after the restart Rangers scored what proved to be the decisive goal when Hay beat Ellis Notley on the right wing. Her cross found Arnot unmarked inside the penalty area and she calmly volleyed the ball into the roof of the net.
Rangers almost doubled their advantage in time added on when a Chantelle Swaby’s cross was deflected into the path of Sam Kerr who took a touch before shooting but her effort struck the top of the post and Rangers held on to secure the victory.
Elsewhere Celtic beat Spartans 5-1 at Ainslie Park, Glasgow City hammered Motherwell 8-0 and Hearts drew 1-1 with Forfar Farmington.
These results leave Hibs in fourth place, level on points with Spartans. Hearts are second bottom, one point in front of Motherwell.
After the game when asked to sum up his feelings Hibs manager Dean Gibson told Hibernian Media: “Frustration, but for different reasons from the last couple of weeks. We won the game last week but I was frustrated for the wrong reasons. I’m frustrated because we put so much into a game of football and got nothing out of it.
“Rangers had a lot of possession but we set up in a way to counter that. We’ve tried to defend higher up the pitch this time. When we come into these games I am confident that we are going to get a result or get something out of the game. Alright we didn’t get a point today but we could have taken something.
“If we had turned up with the attitude from last week or the week before we would have been turned over. The girls, from training on Tuesday through to Friday I knew we had a real chance today.
“I’m just gutted that the girls didn’t manage to get anything out of the game. Things went against us before the game. Amy Gallacher’s pulled up injured in the warm up and these are the things we can do without. We only have four subs at the minute so but again the girls never let that hamper them. They just got on with it.
Leah Eddie added: “It was a frustrating game for us today. We were hoping to take a bit more away from it than we did. Our performance today and our belief shows that we can compete at that high level and hopefully we can go on to this week’s game and take away what we deserve.”
Hibs host Glasgow City at Ainslie Park on Wednesday.
Rangers: Fife, Docherty, Brownlie, Hay, Reilly, McLauchlan, Arnot, Howat, Kerr, Westrup, Swaby. Subs: M Cunningham, Bourma, Devi, Girasoli, Gemmell, Cornet, H Cunningham.
Hibs: Mullen, Leishman, Muir, Eddie, Adams, Cavanagh, Gallacher, Motley, Murray, Boyle, Morrison. Subs: Boyce, McCafferty, Handley, Donald.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
