Wimbledon ladies hockey head coach reckons their achievements this season will have a huge bearing on next season.

The ladies finished second in the WHL Conference East table, only six points off champions Slough.

Marsden had previously targeted a top three finish, but a run of seven games unbeaten since the turn of the year saw Wimbledon push the champions to the final two games of the season.

But with the pride of finishing second, comes the “what ifs” from a campaign that stuttered to three wins and five draws in the 11 games prior to Christmas.

Marsden said: “I am very proud of the ladies, and it has been my first year working with them so I am very pleased with the end result.

“We always knew we would be good enough to be a top three team, and to be unbeaten since Christmas was our objective and we managed that.”

He added: “Looking back, it was a shame we could not convert some of those draws in the first half of the season into wins.

“But it was a new group and we were ironing out a few things in how we wanted to play, and we got to that stage and went unbeaten, so it bodes well for the future.”

Marsden is also delighted that, for the time being, none of the players are making noises about leaving, meaning they can take the momentum into next season.

“We had a consistent and enjoyable second half to the season, there were some great performances and some great goals, and some new additions made a big difference,” he said.

“We now want to take that momentum through the summer and into the start of next season and go for that top spot.”

He added: “Everyone is very positive, we’ve not heard of anyone who is looking to either step down or move to another club – we’re looking to have the same team as a starting point, with maybe some other newcomers.”