What Jenny Sugarman says Wrexham have learned after defeat to Cardiff City | OneFootball

CARDIFF, WALES – 04 JANUARY 2026: Wrexham AFC Women’s Manager Jenny Sugarman during the 2025/2026 Genero Adran Premier league fixture between Cardiff City Women FC & Wrexham AFC Women at Cardiff Athletics Stadium, Cardiff, Wales (Pic by John Smith/FAW)

Genero Adran Premier leaders Wrexham thought they were taking a point home from Cardiff City, with the score at 1-1 going into the final second of the game.

But substitute Fiona Barry struck to seal a win for the hosts – who have now closed the gap on Wrexham to just two points, with a game in hand.

However, Wrexham head coach Jenny Sugarman told Sgorio after the game that her team had learned plenty from the encounter: “That we’re competitive. That we’re where we want to be, competing at the top of the table. That you don’t get anything for free – you have to work for everything.”

She went on: “We knew that coming here that they were going to cause us some problems with the ball. They did, and some of their rotations in that first half we found a little bit difficult to deal with and that allowed them to create chances mostly from deep and from balls into the box, but we perhaps didn’t find our fluidity with the ball in the first half but I thought we definitely did in the second half.

“We know that we’ll be playing Cardiff again another couple of times at least [in Phase Two of the season, when the league splits and the top four play for the championship]. We’ll review it and we’ll hope to be better.”

Jenny Sugarman: The match was a good advert for the league

And Sugarman – who took over the team in the summer of 2025 – reflected that her team’s second-half performance warranted some reward – although she was quick to add that their first-half performance had not been up to their usual standards.

“We struggled to get going first half, there were definitely some nerves there. We weren’t as fluid in our game as we’d have liked to have been.

“Second half I thought we were excellent, the way we battled, the fouls came over and over again. We created chances, they created chances, a great advert for the league, with the quality of football played today. Absolutely gutted with that [goal] right at the end.”