Hull City Ladies in pursuit of Barnsley and Middlesbrough for promotion

The club – who have no affiliation with Hull City AFC – are currently third in the fourth-tier but are only five points away from league leaders Middlesbrough with a potentially significant three games in hand.

Elsewhere in the promotion battle are second-placed Barnsley and fourth-placed Durham Cestria, who are within three and five points of Middlesbrough with games in hand, respectively.

Despite such fierce competition, Hames, pictured, insists his team have the necessary mental strength for the run-in.

He told The Yorkshire Post: “Whether we’ve got games in hand or points on the board, for us we know what we’re working towards.

“The pressure is on us regardless and we relish that. We need to look inwards to be the best versions of ourselves. Since I’ve come into the club, the girls have done brilliantly well to set their own individual targets, recognising their ‘why’ and what they’re trying to achieve.

“We know we’re competing against very good sides and we enjoy that.

“It’s what we do on our own and by ourselves that makes the difference.”

This week could potentially be decisive in the promotion race’s outcome, with Barnsley today hosting sixth-placed Stockport County, while Hull travel to seventh-placed Doncaster Belles tomorrow and Durham face off with Middlesbrough in a top-of-the-table clash on the same day.

But Hames is mostly concerned about the potential rustiness of his players ahead of that crunch set of matches, due to the last two weeks’ worth of postponed fixtures Hull have suffered.

He added: “We’re itching to get playing. We’ve obviously had a couple of weeks with postponed fixtures, so we’re looking forward to just getting back out on the pitch.

“For us it’s something we need to adapt to on the day.

“We know that it’s going to be a challenge for ourselves as we haven’t played for a few weeks, so we need to get going again.”