An evening of hard work for Scotland's women's football team ended in frustration and shared points with their Welsh visitors in front of a crowd of 1,362. Wales had failed to pick up points in their first two EURO2013 qualifying group games with Saturday seeing them beaten 4-1 by France at home after taking an early lead. Last night at Tynecastle, Wales again took an early lead - within three minutes - thanks to Amie Lea and they must have had a feeling of deja-vu when Jane Ross equalised for Scotland in the 19th minute. The expected floodgates did not open for Scotland as some unfortunate decision making when trying to find team-mates ended with procession being given away. Wales went ahead again when a shot-come cross from Helen Lander was adjusted to have crossed the line despite the best efforts of Rachel Corsie to clear the danger off the line. Thankfully, Jennifer Beattie was finally rewarded for her leading the line role with an second equaliser for the home side just before the break. The body language of coach Anna Signeul as she headed up the tunnel at half-time suggested there would be no need for hair-dryers in the home changing room.
The second half was end-to-end stuff with Scotland failing to get the goal they wanted so much in their first home game of the qualifying group games. There was a real chance for Beattie to get her second goal of the night ad third of the campaign right at the death but her header was just 30 cm too high. After a game Signeul is usually in a chatty mood but tonight it was a rather different post-game meeting with the press. Always thoughtful and honest in her answers, at times the national coach appeared to be lost for words to explain what we had all just witnessed. Asked for her reaction to the game, Signeul said: "It was very disappointing; the performance as much as the result. You can't start games like that; that's really not good enough. I think we were on the back foot and it looked like at the beginning of the game that they wanted to win this more than we did. But I think we showed some good character scoring 1-1 and then 2-2. It was a very bad goal to give away (in the third minute) and that is difficult when you lose a goal so early. We knew it would be tough and I knew we wouldn't score so many goals because they play the game very narrow and tight. I watched them against France on Saturday but I thought we would win as we are better than them and we showed that If we played like we did for the last twenty minutes for the whole game then we would have won the game."
Looking ahead to the implications for the group after dropping points at home, Singeul went on: "That doesn't matter. It matters in that we need to win over France now. We won't change our course because of this. But France are taking their points that is for sure. Every game in this group is crucial but I think that we gave away two points today, I really feel that. I don't think we lost discipline, I think we struggled with Helen Landers runs at the beginning until we realised we were defending a little bit too high. I don't think we were suckered into playing the game they wanted us to. We played the way we had talked about before the game but maybe we were not defending as well as we expected. It was a very physical game and they were fighting very hard for every ball. You have to give 100% all the time I think they did that great for the whole game they really fought well. Jayne Ludlow is playing very good in their back line and I think their goalkeeper (Nicola Davis) had a great game as well. We had problems on the left side in the beginning as they were very strong there. But it is really disappointing as we have been playing so well and started game so well so that we was disappointing that we started so poorly. We had played so well the whole autumn but not tonight. It doesn't change our goal and we are determined to achieve that goal, we have just made it a little bit harder just now."
It was a rather buoyant Jarmo Matikainen who followed his Scottish counterpart in meeting the press. His role is similar to Singeul's in that he is charged with developing the women's game across Wales and is not just the national coach. However, his impressions on the game were sought initially. He said: "It was a tough game and I have said it a couple of times that we have probably the toughest group out of the whole qualification competition and Scotland are a very, very good side. But I have also said that we are improving and we approach every game with the attitude of we want to win. We did that against France, we did that against Ireland but we got punished for a few of our mistakes but today's game after twice ahead and then conceding disappointedly then I think the players showed some fantastic character to hold on for the draw in the second half. I think we deserved the point, we played well particularly in the first half and sensibly in the second half. It is a good point away."