Brighouse Town Women beaten by title-favourites Derby on opening day

Town found themselves 1-0 down midway through the first half, and nearly went 2-0 down soon after but for good defensive work from Kayleigh Bamforth to prevent a

tap in at the back post.

Town responded excellently, Danielle Whitham smashed the equaliser in the top corner after excellent work by Amy Woodruff.

They soon found themselves in the lead when Darcie Greene found sister Drew with a long diagonal ball; Drew then catching the keeper out with a clever finish to put

Brighouse 2-1 up before the break.

After the interval Town should have made it 3-1 on a couple of occasions, the first was a bullet header from Woodruff off a Leah Embley cross and the second a bizarre sequence of events found Woodruff through on goal, the linesman had his flag up from a clear offside but the ref waved play on, Woodruff reacted too slowly and a missed opportunity went begging.

As the game entered it’s final stages, it looked as though Brighouse could do the unthinkable and looked in control, however, a long hopeful ball caught Becky Gompertz out leaving Sophie Domingo one on one with debutant keeper Imogen Maguire. Maguire brought Domingo down resulting in a penalty, and it was emphatically executed in the the top left hand corner despite Maguire’s best efforts.

Derby then dealt the killer blow and a real sucker punch with a quickfire goal to make it 3-2 with 10 minutes remaining, after which Town huffed and puffed but couldn’t find the equaliser.

Player of the match for Brighouse was Danielle Whitham.