NIA JONES says survival in FA WSL 1 is about “more than just football” as Reading Women close in on securing another season in the top flight.
After going 13 games without winning, Royals finally broke their duck with a 4-1 success in a relegation six-pointer against Doncaster Rovers Belles on Saturday.
The victory, thanks to goals from Emma Follis (2), Jones and Rachel Rowe, pulls Reading nine points clear of the drop zone and leaves them on the brink of ensuring another campaign among the elite.
And striker Jones admits there was a lot of relief on the trip back from Doncaster.
“It was a very happy bus journey back,” she told The Wokingham Paper.
“It’s been a long time coming.
“I’m not sure we can say it’s worth the wait because we’d have liked to have picked up a few more points in the season.
“But it was a massive result for us.”
She added: “It’s taken a little bit of pressure off.
“It could’ve gone to the last game of the season between us and Donny which would’ve been great for the neutral but it would’ve been a very pressurised game.
“It’s a huge step.
“Donny won’t be a walkover in their last five games because they’re playing for survival.
“But it’s definitely a huge step for us and we can breathe a little sigh of relief before our last two games.”
When Reading got promoted this time last year, most of the squad were handed full-time professional contracts.
But Jones says that could be thrown up in the air again if the club were to get relegated.
“We said from the start of the season that our main aim this season was literally just that we wanted to stay in the league,” she said.
“I think if we do stay up then we will have attained our target for the season.
“(If we get relegated) we have to think about where we’re going to live and what we’re going to do as a job.
“It’s more than just football if you like.
“We do have to think about our careers as well.
“If we stay up it will be a massive, massive step for the club again.”
She added: “It’s said at all our meetings that there will be some financial repercussions if we were to go down.
“They couldn’t have sustained the contracts that they had got players on.
“We might not have all been able to be full-time.
“There will definitely have been an effect.
“We might have had to get a couple of part-time jobs and stuff which would have been a slight backwards step but hopefully if anything we can get everybody on full-time, because there’s still a few part-time.
“Hopefully next season we won’t just be hoping to stay up, we’ll actually be hoping to target the top half of the table.”
Stay close to wokinghampaper.com for more from Nia over the coming days.
