View From The Field: Murray’s Matters (Joelle Murray column)

Four games into a delayed season Hibernian have won two and lost two, which their captain calls unprecedented. Wins over Spartans and Motherwell brought momentum before back-to-back defeats to Rangers and Glasgow City, both sides she rates highly and neither result she thinks unjust. She is candid about Rangers having almost bought a new team, and notes with interest that India’s captain Bala Devi came on only for the closing stages. Forty per cent of the Hibernian squad are academy graduates, and promoting from within before looking elsewhere has always been the club’s motto. Her sharpest observation is about the wider game: it is a shame, she writes, to see independent clubs who have done so well for so long slowly overshadowed by financial constraints and the lack of a name.