There is a 'real fresh feeling' at Hibs

With multiple new faces joining Hibs over the summer, Joelle Murray insists that there is a new ‘fresh feeling’ at the club.

“A new exciting project is underway in Leith as Murray prepares to lead her team out under a new face this Sunday. After Grant Scott returned to the dugout earlier this summer, multiple new additions followed. Many of the new faces around the camp are young players with high potential and bucketloads of experience. New signings such as Mya Christie and Tegan Bowie played in the SWPL last season with the latter winning the Scottish Cup last season. Such additions have seemingly settled in quite quickly with Murray delighted at how the players have helped impact the environment of the club.

“It’s been great,” Murray told the Edinburgh Evening News. “They have brought a real kind of freshness to the club; lots of energy. What helps is that the majority of the players that we have brought in have played in the league, they know the league and they what to expect playing for a club this size.

“The transition has been an easy one. Historically, we have always been an extremely welcoming club and these players have come into this environment and found that to be no different. Everyone speaks about playing embedding in and taking a period of time to settle, I feel like that happened quite quickly for them. If you were to ask them, they would say the same.”

Joelle Murray has recently recovered from an injury in time for the opening fixture. Credit: Malcolm Mackenzie

Murray is one of the players who will have known Scott from his first spell in charge of the club between 2018 and 2019. In this period he was hugely successful delivering the Scottish Cup and League Cup as well as taking the Hibs to the knockout stages of the Champions League. While the SWPL and Hibs may have changed massively since the last time he was in charge, Murray believes he was the only man for the job.

“There has been a massive change since the last time he was at the club.” She explained. “The last time he was here, the team was under the community foundation and now over the last few seasons, we have been under the main club itself. There have not been so many changes with Scott and how he goes about his business. He is extremely professional and has a really good personal touch. There have been more changes in the environment that he is coming back into. It is more professional and there are more resources that he has at his disposal which is night and day better compared to the last time he was here.

“After the news about Dean [Gibson] there was only one contender for the job and that was Grant Scott. He is someone that knows the club, he is familiar with the majority of players having worked with us the last time he was here. He just knows what it takes to be at a club of this size. It is fantastic to have Scott back in a managerial capacity.”