Charlotte Dinsdale was proud of the way her youthful side conducted themselves on the opening day against Loughborough Lightning.
City showed plenty of fight and desire throughout the 90 minutes despite coming up short, and the Imps’ new head coach believes her side have a good foundation to build on.
Dinsdale said: “I can’t fault the performance of the team. We’re on a bit of a rebuild and I thought, particularly in the first half, we played really well.
“We were solid at the back. Some of the players that have come in have done a fantastic job. I thought Jenna McGee was superb, she really led from the back and was commanding in her area.
“We did really well in the first 15 minutes, but then Loughborough scored a great goal and that put us on the back foot a little bit. Going into half-time I was really pleased, I couldn’t have asked for any more. We talked about the discipline side and the girls gave me that in abundance.”
The Imps stood up bravely to a side that finished second in the league last season, and Dinsdale was impressed with the performance of some of her younger players.
She continued: “We were expecting a really tough opposition. Loughborough are an organised team with young and exciting players, so we expected nothing less.
“We’re still finding our feet and still have a couple of weeks to go with that, and some of our younger players were absolutely outstanding for us.
“They had a never-say-die attitude, and when you concede a couple of goals it becomes tough, it puts you on the back foot and heads can start to go down, but they didn’t do that and gave absolutely everything until the 90th minute.”