Lisburn Ladies captain Christine Clews believes that this year is the club’s “moment” to build on their Championship dominance and establish themselves as a Danske Bank Women’s Premiership club.

Clews has been part of the club for over a decade but this is her first season as a top-flight player after Hayden Davis’s side enjoyed an unbeaten season in the second tier to secure promotion.

The midfielder, 29, explains: “This feels like our moment – to win the Championship with an unbeaten season was a fantastic achievement and we deserve to be where we are.

“We have known for years that we were close to Premiership status and that it would eventually come, so now it is up to us to maintain that and build as a club.

“The step up to this level is huge and this was always going to be a season of us having to show that we can compete and hold our own.

“This year is naturally a huge learning curve for us because you are coming up against internationals every week but also against girls who aren’t at that level but have so much more experience than us.”

Alongside fellow newly-promoted Mid Ulster Ladies, the opening months of the campaign have been a challenge for Lisburn Ladies – with a significant step-up in technical ability and fitness between the two divisions.

Yet the club’s promotion has ensured they have now incorporated more coaches into the club and stepped up their weekly training regime.

“We knew we would need to train harder and better than ever to make that step up,” added Clews.

“We have started doing extra training sessions each week and focus more on strength and conditioning, so we have a coach in for that to help us more with the gym work.

“We also brought a goalkeeping coach in and more coaches in to work through sessions and there is no doubt that all those improvements have added up to help us.

“It is a different style of play for us this year as we need to work a lot more defensively, but now that we have played every side once – we now want to focus more on taking the game to opposition sides.

“It is a lot of hard work but we want to improve our set pieces and counter-attacks, and we know that some other teams might be a little bit sharper – but we need to keep trying to close that gap.”

Lisburn Ladies have already achieved two significant landmarks; earning their first point of the season away to Derry City Women before securing their first ever top-flight victory – triumphing 4-2 at Mid Ulster Ladies last time out.

“The group chats between us all the next day was as busy as it had been all season,” Clews continued. “It was all so positive with good vibes!

“We kept believing in ourselves that the win would come sooner rather than later and it was such a huge moment when it did.
“That is something that can’t be taken away from us and we want to build on that – to keep getting that winning feeling.”

Ultimately, Lisburn’s final standing is likely to be determined by their results this season against both Mid Ulster and Derry City – the latter of whom they came so close to beating at the Brandywell earlier in the campaign, only for Jessica Hall to see her late penalty saved by the home side’s goalkeeper Clare Friel.

“We were so close to that away victory at Derry City but hopefully we can get the three points in the home games,” said Clews.

“But Derry are an established Premiership team and they have a lot of experience of this level, they deserve a lot of respect for what they have done.

“We know those games against them and Mid Ulster, we have the opportunities for points and that is probably what will define our season.

“The other games are about learning, developing and competing – we know it will improve us.”

Lisburn Ladies travel to Mid Ulster Ladies again this week in the Women's Premiership League Cup quarter finals.