Fylde Women had scored eight goals in two games prior to lockdown. And anyone concerned the seven-week break would have cost them momentum need not have feared – they scored another eight in Sunday’s comeback game.

There seems to be no stopping a Fylde side who have taken the FA Women’s National Northern Premier Division (the third tier of the game) by storm this season under co-managers Kim Turner and Danielle Young.

Sunday’s 8-1 defeat of Sheffield at Kellamergh Park consolidated second place in the table with six wins from eight games and was rated by Turner as “close to a perfect performance”.

It was anybody’s game at half-time, with Fylde leading 2-1, but they ran riot in the second half in Wesham as Fay McCoy finished with four goals.

It was the best imaginable return to action for Turner who told The Gazette:

“It’s weird because the conditions were so bad and we expected a real fight in that weather, but the second half was unreal.

“We’ve worked hard on our forward play and I trust our forward players. They really went out and unleashed themselves.

“We scored two quick goals in the first half and then a bit of a defensive error let them back into it. But in the second half, we never let them in it as regards to chances.

“We said at half-time that we would put into practice what we had been working on and that’s just what they did.

“We had the wind to our advantage in the second half and we took total ownership of the game. It would have been very hard for any side to defend against us.”

Jess Holbrook with two, Emily Hollinshead and Olivia Fuller were also on the scoresheet for Fylde.

Unfortunately, Fylde’s emphatic win was matched on Sunday by leaders Huddersfield Town, who maintain their three-point advantage although Fylde have a game in hand.

But Turner feels those two 8-1 scorelines send out a positive ‘anything you can do….’ message ahead of Sunday’s final fixture of the year away to Stoke – the side hammered by Huddersfield last time out.

“Huddersfield and ourselves winning by the same score is almost nice in a way,” added Turner. “For us to put in a performance like that to match theirs just shows how serious we are in the competition.”

It also shows that their hard work during lockdown had paid off as Turner explained:

“We gave the players a lockdown programme and this shows they put the work in.

“When we came back we had a game against Manchester City Under-21s and two training sessions last week.

“It was a good performance by everyone but Faye was exceptional. The back four had great shape and the way the full-backs joined in the forward play was like Liverpool.

“We pushed up and put the defence under great pressure. The delivery from the wide players was great too.”

The league takes a three-week break after Sunday’s games.