Hughes explains feeling of last-gasp heroics

As the ball dropped and she simultaneously soared, Hughes was the coolest person in Sutton – watching it all the way onto her forehead, then glancing it brilliantly back across goal and into the net.

It was the least she – and Crystal Palace – deserved from their opening game of the season, a 1-1 draw with Reading.

“Now I’m thinking back, it felt like it was in the air for ages!” Hughes laughed.

“I know the quality that we’ve got in this team and as soon as it went to Fliss’ left foot, I thought ‘get yourself in and around the goal and hope for the best’. It was a great ball and I was delighted to get on the end of it.

“I feel like it was the least we deserved. We wanted to come away with a win so, because we didn’t do that, we need to build on it next week.”

Palace had played well in their first Women’s Championship match of the season, but struggled to turn their possession into clear chances in the second-half, eventually falling behind in the final minute of regulation time to a Reading set-piece.

Yet back they fought.

Hughes surmised: “I think there’s a lot of emotion in the first game of the season. You go through a long, hard pre-season and then you’re all just excited to get the game going.

“Reading were probably thinking the exact same thing so the first half of the game you can see there was a bit of nerves, but we eventually settled and we did what we wanted to do.

“I think as a team we pride ourselves on keeping clean sheets. As a unit we didn’t do that but the least we could do was try and pull ourselves back into the game, and we did that.

“Obviously conceding late, late on, in the 90th minute, it shows a real togetherness that we were able to come back into the game.

“We want to win as many games as possible and keep as many clean sheets as possible. Obviously, as a forward, I want to score as many goals as possible. It’s a bit of a cliché but we want to go into every game thinking about those targets as an individual and as a team. Today, we did that.

“We went for it in the dying minutes of the game and we can prove we’ve got that in us. Next time, if we can get the three points as well, that’ll be much better.”

Palace Women's next home match is against Durham on Sunday 10th September; click here to book tickets.