Tommy Ryan-Maynard says Brentford Women B had a ‘great season’ and was left proud of his side following their 2022/23 campaign.

The B team had a similar season to the first team where they finished second in the Greater London Women’s Football League Division One North and reached a Capital Cup Junior Section final where they were narrowly defeated by a strong Millwall Community Trust side.

In what was Tommy Ryan-Maynard’s first season in charge of the B team the head coach was left in a positive mindset as he looked back on a campaign where his side was on the verge of winning two trophies. Speaking at the Brentford Women internal awards evening, Ryan-Maynard gave his overall thoughts on how his side performed over the season.

“It’s been a great first season, one that I’ve really enjoyed every moment of, it has been a long season but I’m pleased it has been because I’ve watched these girls grow and develop which has been fantastic with lots of great memories made and I hope for many more.”

Brentford Women B made an incredible start to the campaign scoring nine times over the first two games which saw the side win win 5-0 against local rivals Actonians Thirds in the season opener and 4-1 against Tower Hamlets, both games being away from home.

Following his appointment as head coach Ryan-Maynard was challenged with building a new Brentford Women B side which saw over 10 new arrivals join the squad from the previous season. The head coach was left delighted with how quickly his young team were able to adapt to each other’s game and pointed to a successful pre-season period as the reason why his team had such a positive start to their 2022/23 campaign.

He said: “Last year’s pre-season was great, the girls settled in really well and I think this is the closest we have ever been as a squad. We brought in loads of new girls and they’ve really fitted in and the players who have come down from the first team added to a fantastic bond in the B team.”

The side had a number of memorable wins throughout a season where they found the net a staggering 74 times in just 23 games. An 8-0 win over Luton Town and a 9-0 win over Tower Hamlets were the two highlight performances of a season where Ryan Maynard’s team displayed their attacking quality right from the off.

The head coach talked on how pleased he was following the massive victories over Luton Town and Tower Hamlets but feels his side could have been even more clinical in certain games over the course of the season.

“In those games we were absolutely fantastic, everything we done on those days was brilliant and up to the level that we needed to be at. I think we could have had a couple more of those results in the season but we just wasn’t always ruthless,” explained Ryan-Maynard.

The B team were in the running to win the double until the final two months of the season but unfortunately were defeated in the Capital Cup final before finishing second in their domestic competition with Leyton Orient claiming promotion.

Ryan-Maynard talked on what he felt went wrong in the final few months of the season as his young team struggled to show consistency in the most important moments.

“In the final especially we struggled to deal with the pressure, it took us too long to get our rhythm and momentum in that game, we were 2-0 down in eight minutes but after those first 10 minutes we were by far the better team and dominated but just couldn’t take our chances.

“In the league, we pushed Leyton Orient close to the end but we just needed a little bit more consistency, we had a spell where we had two or three weeks off so it was hard to get back into our rhythm and we made some silly mistakes against East London in particular cost us the league title.”