One of the advantages of the international break is that a handful of times a season we can put all that distracting multi-million pound Championship nonsense to one side and pay proper attention to our women’s team. This weekend has fallen perfectly, as we have a fixture which really deserves a good build-up!

The new-look Wrexham side Jenny Sugarman has assembled has an exciting, enterprising feel to it, and has started superbly. She’s equalled the club record for the best start by a new manager of the women’s team, and takes us into Sunday’s game with four wins out of her first five games.

We’re equal top, and it’s time for the ultimate test: champions Cardiff City.

They’re keeping us off the top spot on goal difference, and are the yardstick all other Adran Premier sides must be measured by. Under their head coach Iain Darbyshire they’ve established a virtual monopoly of Welsh trophies, doing the double three seasons in a row, with an Adran Trophy completing the clean sweep two seasons ago.

To put it another way, they’ve only missed out on the equivalent of the league cup since 2022. That’s seven trophies from a possible nine! Oh, and they won the Welsh Cup the season before that.

Intimidated yet? Don’t be. This isn’t a fixture to fear, it’s a rivalry to relish.

Last season we pulled off a miracle by reaching the top four at the end of the first phase of the season, when the Adran Premier splits in two. And I mean the end: we came from nowhere with a spectacular run of wins, and when Keren Allen hit what turned out to be the winner in the last minute at Swansea it was the first time we’d reached fourth place all season!

In phase two we achieved something new. We beat Cardiff. And then we did it again.

We’d lost our previous eight games against them, scoring four and conceding twenty eight in the process. But our progress was real: the two wins over Swansea that ended the first part of the season were the first time we’d beaten The Swans, and now we were doing the double over the Bluebirds. We really ought to have been reported to the RSPB.

They weren’t lucky wins either. In truth, City had ridden their luck in a couple of their more recent wins against us, not least in the 2024 Welsh Cup final, and our improvement had threatened to bear dividends for a while.

When the wins came, they were emphatic: a 2-1 win at Cardiff which was more comfortable than the scoreline suggested and then a superb comeback win in Denbigh, beating them 4-2 with Abbie Iddenden scoring the best hat trick I’ve ever seen by a Wrexham player.

And before you ask, yes, I did see that Lee Trundle treble against Oxford. This was better.

So this rivalry is boiling up nicely, and both sides have started the season impressively  and are equal top. We’re both banging the goals in too: we’re the division’s equal top scorers with 19 goals apiece. Something’s got to give.

We have every reason to believe in this team. Sugarman cuts an impressive figure, and those in the know speak glowingly about our ability to attract a manager of such stature and quality.

She’s brought quality with her too. Five senior signings each have a mark of quality about them, and one of the two youth signings she’s made has already scored a thunderbolt on her debut.

We warmed up last Sunday with the first leg of what, not too long ago, would have been an intimidating double-header against the giants of South Walian football. A trip to the impressive Swansea.com stadium saw us face a home side also under new management, which had won seven in a row before losing to Cardiff the weekend before, and kept four clean sheets to start the season.

No problem. We were 2-0 up after twelve minutes and should have been further ahead when they pulled a goal back against the run of play. No problem, we pushed on to claim a 3-1 win which, frankly, flattered The Swans massively.

It was a massive performance by the team, and a reminder of Sugarman’s qualities. We’ve suffered one reverse under her, and it was an odd one. We crossed the border to face TNS having scored eight in our first two games of the season with a fluent three at the back with a box midfield which accommodated an exciting range of attacking players.

Sugarman chose to switch to a flat back four for the game, and it didn’t work. There’s nothing wrong with trying something new, but on this occasion it fell flat and we suddenly looked disjointed as we subsided to a 4-2 loss.

Next match, at home to Pontypridd, normal service was resumed as we reverted to the system which had served us so well and won 6-1. What happened next was where Sugarman proved her worth.

She backed her instincts over taking the easy way out and reverted to the back four we fielded at TNS, with some little tweaks. It was brave, brilliant, and we banished the memory of that defeat.

I don’t know what she’ll cook up for Sunday’s summit meeting, but I know the aim will be to wrest control of the title race. I can’t wait.