24 Aug 2008
VIDEO: Doncaster Rovers Belles 4-0 Bristol Academy

Watch the highlights from the Keepmoat Stadium as Doncaster Rovers Belles ease to victory.

Nottingham Forest v Blackburn Rovers
FA Tesco Women's Premier League
2pm, Sunday 31 August 2008
Carlton Town FC

Newly promoted Nottingham Forest will be aiming to collect their first points of the season on Sunday, when they entertain Blackburn Rovers in their fourth match of the FA Tesco Women’s Premier League campaign.

Forest have had what manager Lisa Dawkins describes as “a baptism of fire” in the club’s first season of top flight football. But, she insists, her team remains in confident mood as they look to consolidate their National Division status.

As the Northern Division champions prepare to face Blackburn – who on Thursday evening picked up their first point of the campaign with a 2-2 draw against Leeds Carnegie – Dawkins says: “The players are feeling totally positive.

“We are certainly getting used to the demands of the National Division after a baptism of fire in our first game, against Birmingham. We were like rabbits in headlights for the first 15 to 20 minutes, but in the end we did well to keep the scoreline down to 1-0.

“That game was a wake-up call in terms of the standard of the National Division and the pace that games are played at, so it was pleasing when we went to Watford that we gave a good account of ourselves and I felt we deserved a draw rather than a 3-2 defeat.

“Against Doncaster on Tuesday night we changed out tactics and ended up losing 4-1, but we matched them in the first half and a couple of silly mistakes cost us. It’s a steep learning curve we’re on, but we are getting there.

“There’s a belief through the whole squad that we are getting better and that the results will come, hopefully starting on Sunday against a team who like ourselves haven’t had the best of starts in terms of results.”

Forest’s elevation to the top flight came in the wake of their Football League parent club hosting the FA Women’s Cup Final in each of the last two seasons, on both occasions setting attendance records for the big showpiece match.

The work put in by Forest and the local authority paid huge dividends and has had an encouraging knock-on effect for women’s football in the area, says Dawkins. “The women’s game has benefited enormously,” she says.

“A lot more youngsters seem to be playing, our Centre of Excellence is thriving and female football fans have come out of the woodwork – we get bigger crowds now, including a lot of youngsters from junior clubs who come along to support us.

“We are also getting really good backing from our parent club. As an umbrella club Nottingham Forest are taking women’s football seriously and that’s great for us and for the long term future of the women’s game in our area.”