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

The Hibernian captain writes from a restarted SWPL, funded back into action by weekly COVID testing and compressed into Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday fixtures that her body, she says, does not need at her age. Hibs sit fifth, a long way from what they have been used to, after losing several players and carrying injuries into a transitional year. She is clear-eyed rather than aggrieved about why: Glasgow City, Rangers and Celtic can strengthen and rotate, and Hibernian, in the infancy of a semi-professional set-up, cannot outbid anyone, particularly now agents are involved in the Scottish game. With Jamie-Lee Napier and Abi Harrison gone to the WSL, the shape has changed. She is proud of an academy supplying forty per cent of the first team.