Tom Cunniff admitted he has learnt a lot from his first season as head coach of Wanderers Women after jumping in at the “deep end”.
Cunniff took charge at the start of October following Myles Smith’s departure and led the Whites to third place in their first campaign in tier five.
The head coach hailed his squad for adapting quickly and believes the future is bright as they aim to kick on.
“As staff, we couldn’t have asked for more from them so massive thanks to them for that. From my point of view, my first season as head coach,” he told the club channels.
“(Taking over) during the season so I didn’t have the pre-season planned by me, which we will have next season.
“I have learnt a lot on the job and I feel like the players have massively helped me along that journey.”
The head coach added: “We were thrown in the deep end a little bit with how fast everything happened, but we had so much support from the club and the players were so good.
“They bought into everything we were saying straight away and I think you can see that in the first couple of months of results.
“We got instant results, very good performances and a really good morale in camp that led us to a really strong, high finish in our first season.”
Cunniff also outlined the next steps as Wanderers aim to "attack" the league in 2026/27 and explained what they look for in potential recruits.
“We have been thinking about it for a couple of weeks now. Obviously, we have to get ahead of the game in terms of recruitment, players staying and that kind of thing,” he said.
“The first steps are meeting with our current players, seeing where their futures lie, looking at the squad and what we have got coming through the pathway, and if we need to recruit in certain areas.
“If we want to attack this league next year and try to win it, we probably need a bit more depth in the squad.”
Cunniff added: “We always want to improve the squad. We have a lot of interest because we are a big club, we have a good history and we are proud of that.
“A lot of people want to join us so we are fortunate in that aspect, but it has got to be the right kind of characters that join the club.
“We have got a good squad, good morale in the team. We don’t want to disrupt that but we do want to kick on, and if we do need to sign players in certain areas, we will.”
Wanderers Women face Accrington Stanley in an end of season friendly at the Wham Stadium on Sunday (1pm) with FREE entry.
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