The Leeds United Women who defeated Barnsley in Tadcaster on Wednesday night were not the same team the Reds beat at the start of the season.

You can’t achieve greatness overnight, and at the tail end of a back-to-Leeds season which has earned his players glory, silverware, but no ticket to a more competitive level of football, head coach Rick Passmoor has keenly emphasised the maintenance of ‘a growth mindset’.

In his second competitive game in charge back in August, United were undone by a failure to deal with aerial balls, finding no way back into the game after Barnsley had lobbed ‘keeper Carrie Simpson twice within eleven minutes.

Things would have been different if, before Barnsley had scored any, someone had headed in Olivia Smart’s corner when it dropped temptingly on the six-yard line. Laura Bartup fancied it, but so did Sandra Soares-Martins, and the two of them conspired to send the ball over the crossbar.

On Wednesday, though, no one contested Catherine Hamill as she set herself to attack another beautifully-delivered corner, this time launched by Sarah Danby. How could anyone, red or white, challenge for it, after she showed us how nicely she can nod Leeds into the lead against Hull just one week ago?

After waiting until the Whites’ 31st game of the season to get on the scoresheet, she enjoyed it so much she did it again in the 33rd. Unlike lightning, Hamill struck twice because she knew where that corner would drop, and her team-mates knew her newfound power and got the hell out of her way.

Beaming in her post-match interview, Hamill noted the change. “From the second game, to our third-from-last game, I think we’re just working together a lot more, understanding each other’s games.”

On well-worn legs, the Whites may feel like they’re limping toward the finish line, but they are beginning to bear the fruits of hours and hours and hours spent on the pitch together. Passmoor would have loved to send United up a division at the first time of asking but, in the eight months since he took charge, they could hardly have asked for a more thorough introduction to each other and his ways.

He concedes that, though they were outplayed at home to Durham, the responsibility for every other league defeat is at the feet of his own players.

“If you look at the games that we’ve lost in the league, we’ve lost them — it’s not that the opposition have won,” he told LUTV after the Barnsley win. “It was either an individual or a group error at that time. We didn’t have the energy, we didn’t have the focus mentally, we didn’t do the basics right. We’ve had that in these last few games, and it is tiredness, it is fatigue.”

One of the most called-upon players in a long, long season, Simpson is as tired as anyone, and like in the reverse back in August, she couldn’t stretch high enough when Barnsley hit back with a looping long-range effort five minutes after Hamill’s header.

Half-time came too soon to test whether the equaliser would unravel Leeds. But they’d recovered from an identical setback in the Plate final against Stourbridge. This midweek dead rubber had none of those stakes but all of the opportunity to rehearse that mentality which Passmoor has seen slipping too often this season, a problem he wants to eradicate before the next one.

Macy Ellis had it on Wednesday. She’d missed three golden chances in the first half, but didn’t look deflated as she left Alayna Millard for dust in the 54th minute. There was nothing basic about the way she cut inside and squared for Jess Rousseau to tap in at the back post.

A goal’s a goal, and 2-1 would have made a point and earned the points. But points don’t mean prizes any more, whereas Abbie Brown’s thunder-volley was a real treat. She matched the magnificence of Rachel Hindle’s cross and then some, slamming it first-time against the inside of the far post. Wham, bam, thank you Abbie, we all enjoyed that almost as much as you did.

After Leeds’ third came an unsettled period which left Passmoor asking, ‘who’s in the lead?’ But when high bouncing balls caused United problems again, Simpson was there to prevent Emily Pierrepont from halving their lead with a diving save.

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Any late punter arriving at the So-Trak stadium midway through the second half might have felt they could answer Passmoor’s question by the volume and tone of the voices. It was Barnsley who had a two-goal deficit to recover, yet all of the most urgent sounds were coming from the home dugout and the white shirts on the pitch.

Nearing the end of a season of growth, Leeds are playing well, but they want to play better. With two games remaining, the finish line is in sight, but they don’t want to feel satisfied or drop their standards on their way.

“What I want is for them to leave a legacy and have memories,” Passmoor said. “So we don’t go out of the season just mediocre, just seeing the games out. Let’s go out with a bang.” ⬢