Brentford Women lose 4-2 to National League side Haywards Heath Town in their first pre-season fixture on Sunday afternoon with the Bees playing five trialists as work towards the 2023/24 season begins.

Karleigh Osborne fielded an unfamiliar Brentford Women's side with four trialists starting the game for the home team as the head coach looks to bring in new additions ahead of the new campaign.

The opening 10 minutes saw the Bees play some good football but they were eventually undone by Haywards Heath who compete two steps above them in the National League. The visitors soon displayed their quality scoring twice in two minutes as they took an early 2-0 lead.

Brentford managed to pull one back on 16 minutes when Trialist number nine lobbed the away side’s keeper confidently, but the visitors extended their lead to two goals just after the half-hour mark.

Nikki Woods who scored eight times for the Bees last season, took Brentford to a goal within Haywards Heath moments before the break as the forward showed composure to take the ball around the visitors’ keeper and slot it into an empty net, seeing the Bees go into half-time 3-2 down.

The women’s first team made three changes at the break as Mollie Dench, Freya Worsley and another trialist were introduced to the game in an attempt to give every player in the squad valuable minutes as preparation for the new season began.

The second half proved to be a quiet one with Brentford struggling to create any real goal-scoring opportunities, Woods was the brightest of the home sides forwards and came close to levelling the game on 80 minutes but her strike from inside the box was easily gathered by Haywards Heath’s number one.

The National League side found the net again five minutes from time taking the game out of sight for Brentford in what was a good test for the side against solid opposition.

Karleigh Osborne's thoughts

The women’s first team head coach Karleigh Osborne was left pleased with what he saw from his side despite the defeat.

Speaking on the game, Osborne said: “There was some good moments from us, we had a formation change and a few new players come in so it’s never going to be easy, we have a few players still away also so I’m looking forward to seeing the full squad back in again.

“Haywards Heath are a good outfit, a National League team so it was a good test for us but I’ll be honest I didn’t think there was much between us. They were more clinical and you could tell that they have probably been training for a couple of weeks before this game, but I was pleased with what I saw from the girls.”

Osborne went on to talk about the changes he made to the squad with new personnel brought in ahead of the up-and-coming campaign and also touched on some of the quality that remains in the side, including Nikki Woods who scored an excellent goal for the Bees.

He continued: “The trialists did well and I’m excited about next season and the squad we are putting together because we have made some really good signings who weren’t involved today so it will be good to get them in and build some momentum to take us into the new season.

“Nikki is a fantastic player, I want to push her on and demand more of her because she’s such a talent so I’m over the moon that she’s with us next season. I’m happy with all the players that we’ve got and we have kept from last season, we had a strong team in the last campaign and we’re adding more strength and depth so I’m excited about what’s to come.”