Cliftonville captain Megan Moran has been at the club for almost a decade but admits that the winning feeling at Solitude this year is impossible to beat.
The experienced defender has helped the Reds to 12 wins from their 14 Danske Bank Women’s Premiership matches to date and three points against Derry City on Wednesday would see them leapfrog Glentoran at the top of the standings.
Moran - who joined the club from Donegal Celtic in 2013 - has not been used to the club regularly challenging for major honours but she insists the professionalism from the coaching staff - instilled in the close-season - has transformed the club.
Furthermore, she believes that has transformed the atmosphere at Solitude with the players enjoying their football and focused on each game.
“This started before our pre-season even began with a huge shift in mentality at the club,” Moran explained.
“Women’s football is still a huge commitment because you need to give up time with your family and get time out of work to play without a wage, you have to want it and enjoy it - that emotional attachment has to be there and this season it is more than ever.
“The professionalism from the coaching staff makes the training more enjoyable and that translates to matches, especially with the new players coming in over the close-season to give us a lift.
“Everyone here is really driven and focused on our objectives and the standards that have been set, so the enjoyment goes beyond the results on the pitch.
“We know what our roles are and everybody is buying into what the club are doing.”
Sunday saw the Reds bounce back from conceding an early goal to hit four unanswered second half goals to oust Crusaders 4-1 in the North Belfast derby.
Moran continued: “We know that any game this year could make or break our season so we have had that focus and intensity on every match.
“On Sunday we did not meet our own standards in the first half and Crusaders took advantage of that and punished us, so the break allowed us to regroup for the second half.
“We knew we had given ourselves a lot to do so to get the two quickfire goals set us up for playing our own game and we had the mentality to push through to the end with two late goals.”
Wednesday night’s game against Derry City will mean that all sides in the division will have played 15 matches each - with five rounds of action remaining.
If the Reds managed to secure the points, they will go top of the table - although there is still a long way to go in this year’s title race.
“We have had those two games in hand for so long, it has been the asterisks at the start of every report for months that we had them,” the 28-year-old added.
“For players we knew we had to remember that those two games did not equal points and you can see that in the recent games against Sion and Crusaders with falling behind early.
“This has been a very long season and even after Wednesday we have another five matches to play - so it is a huge challenge for us.
“There have been upsets throughout the season where teams have dropped points, and in a lot of games we have managed just to edge out our opponents - most victories are a real battle.
“If you look at our game earlier in the season against Glentoran, we were two goals down straight away but managed to win 4-2 - that showed our mentality but also that we cannot keep starting slowly.”
Cliftonville’s clash against Derry gets underway at 7.45pm at Solitude on Wednesday.
