Livingston Women's midfielder Gemma Mason hopes that finding her scoring boots can help lead the Lionesses to a successful season.
Having worked on that aspect of her game since the end of last season, she admits she's delighted to have chipped in more on the scoresheet after finding the net three times in the last four games - including scoring directly from a corner-kick in last weekend's 2-0 cup win over Falkirk.
Livi have enjoyed a bright start to the season as they head into the second round of SWF Championship fixtures sitting joint-top with Renfrew. The two sides meet at New Western Park on Sunday in a key clash.
Speaking to the West Lothian Courier, Mason said: "The main difference for me is just confidence. I've been doing a lot of training and it's a part of my game that I've been working really hard on to improve so to see the results come from that is brilliant. I want to be the best player that I can be.
"Once you've scored one it definitely gives you the belief to keep going for it. The last two goals have been with my left foot, too, which is certainly different but I'll take that!
"The aim is to get promoted but we want to be winning trophies. We know how difficult that is going to be but we have real belief within the squad that we can be challenging."
Reflecting on last season's disappointing finish, she says it's spurred the side on this year and believes a full pre-season campaign has been crucial to their early success.
She added: "It's been a really challenging start to the season but I think we're all happy with how we've performed. It's a revamped league and that's made it more competitive, every game is so tough now.
"We've really had to dig deep in our games to pick up points and maybe that was one of the things we lacked last season. We fell short then and it was all part of a learning curve, I think. It was our first full season and we've been able to take a lot from that and grow and adapt into this season.
"You've seen games already where we've come from behind or got last minute winners and that's maybe not something we were able to do last year.
"I think having a proper pre-season helped us out massively because covid restrictions were still in place last pre-season. This year we were able to use that time to really prepare and get everything ironed out before the season started. That put us in a good place and now we just want to keep going."
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