Rangers Boss Jo Potter: ‘We Won’t Stop Until We Win the League’ After Cup Double Triumph

Rangers manager Jo Potter has insisted it will be third time lucky as she set her sights on claiming the SWPL trophy.

Potter led Rangers to a League Cup and Scottish Cup double for the second season in succession but the elusive league title is what she wants to get her hands on most of all.

Rangers were emphatic winners in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden today, winning 3-0 against a Glasgow City side who never looked capable of asking them any questions.

Two goals from Kirsty Howat and one from Mia McAulay were enough to ease the disappointment of losing out to Hibernian in the race for this year’s SWPL crown — a prize Potter immediately set her sights on capturing next term.

‘You don’t win a trophy, it doesn’t feel nice,’ said Potter. ‘We always feel the extra pressure at Rangers. We take away two trophies a season and everybody expects us to get three. We’ve been really close to that for two seasons now.

‘It doesn’t feel great, but we can’t forget winning trophies is what it’s about.

Rangers’ players celebrate after a 3-0 win against Glasgow City completes a cup double 

Mia McAulay opens the scoring for Rangers in a convincing triumph at Hampden Park

‘We took a cup double again. I’ve won four trophies here in the last two seasons, which is a big, big achievement. Yes, it’s not the one that we wanted, but we’ve got to celebrate these moments.

‘We’ve got to celebrate cup victories, especially when we’re turning up in two finals like that and beating two very good teams, the two teams that finished above us, in the finals with dominant performances in both.

‘I’m really, really pleased for the girls that we could turn up after the disappointment of last week and get another trophy. It really means a lot.’

Pressed on what it would take to go one better next season, having only lost out to Hibs on the final day, Potter insisted it was all about fine margins — but conceded the increasing competitive edge in the women’s top flight would make it an even tougher job going forward.

‘It’s (the title) just got away from us,’ she added. ‘There’s been no team that’s been as close as we have to winning that amount of trophies. You do look at it and you think of the two different sides that’s let us down in two different years.

‘You’re looking at the third year and going, hopefully we learn from both years and bring it all together. But that’s not as easy as it’s said. Look how hard it’s been this year to make those finals and win these trophies and be in the top of the split and compete every single week.

‘When you’ve got teams that are coming in and trying to push for titles now, it’s getting more and more difficult. This year was so much more difficult than last year, so it’s going to get even more difficult next year.

‘You’d like to think there’s probably another couple of teams that are going to turn the screw again and push and want to maybe go a little bit more full-time. We welcome that. We want that to happen, but it’s going to get even harder. We won’t stop until we’re trying to get that league title again.’

Glasgow City manager Leanne Ross was irked not just that her players ended up with losers’ medals but that they failed to give any kind of account of themselves.

‘I was actually lost for words in terms of what we actually produced,’ she said. ‘We never passed the ball. But again, that goes back to playing a team in Rangers that are able to go and press you high up the pitch. I don’t feel like we won any duels at all today either.

‘We were outfought all over the pitch. That’s the biggest disappointment for me because I didn’t see it coming in terms of the way that we’ve been playing recently.

‘We’ve only got ourselves to blame in terms of how we approached that game. Unfortunately, we didn’t show up.’