Aberdeen Women will ramp up their pre-season preparations with a weekend training camp and a friendly against Montrose.
The match against the Gable Endies on Sunday will be played behind closed doors at Cormack Park, before the Dons travel to Links Park to play them again next weekend.
Before Sunday’s game against the newly promoted SWPL 2 side, Aberdeen will benefit from a weekend training camp where they will spend almost three days together.
The squad will stay in a hotel on Friday night before a full day’s training session on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s friendly.
Dons co-boss Emma Hunter believes that being able to spend so much time together on and off the pitch will help boost the team ahead of the SWPL 1 2022-23 season.
She said: “We’re utilising a long weekend to get together and work on what we want to implement next season.
“It’s a good opportunity to spend time together and bond as a team, we’ll be watching the Euros together tonight.
“It’ll make a huge difference. We didn’t get to do this last season because of Covid, so we’ll cherish these moments.
“This weekend will be great to get a friendly in as well. Montrose will be a good challenge, they’ve made some really good signings and are a really determined team.
“They’ve got high aspirations as well and it’s great to have someone closer to us to be able to get that fixture and game time in.
“It’ll be a good competition for both teams and hopefully we’ll be able to get the best out of each other to prepare for the season that is coming up.”
Excitement is building ahead of fast-approaching season
Aberdeen have already played two pre-season games against Hibernian and Hamilton – who they play on the opening day of the SWPL 1 season on August 7.
Hunter is already looking forward to the challenge of the upcoming campaign and believes it’s going to be another season of transition for her side.
She added: “We’re really excited for the season to start. There is the new format and there are going to be more teams in the league this year so it’ll be interesting to see how it all shapes up.
“Some clubs have made really interesting signings so we’re intrigued to see how the teams are going to look. From our side, we’re looking forward to bringing in a couple of new faces and new young talent.
“We also have to be realistic and realise we’re still in this period of transition. Last season we wanted to cement our place in the league which we more than did.
“But we were probably really inconsistent so there is a lot we want to tweak and things we want to be better at.
“We’ll want to try a different playing style this season which should give us more opportunities to create chances against the challenging professional full-time teams.
“We’ve got a lot to learn and it’s transitional – there will be mistakes and learnings again next season but we’re excited as players and as coaches to get going.”