It may have been a first Championship win since late September, but Watford Women’s recent form meant the 2-0 away success at Durham didn’t shock those within the Hornets camp.

The home side were sitting in the top half of the table and Watford were bottom, but they had played well in league games before and after Christmas – as well as putting up a spirited display in the FA Cup against Arsenal.

So, while it may have looked like a big upset, to those at Watford it was more a case of their performances finally being rewarded.

“I feel that way myself, yeah,” said head coach Damon Lathrope.

“We were really disappointed with our last home game before Christmas against London City, where without a doubt we should have won.

“We were 3-0 up very quickly and given those circumstances you could play that game 10 times and you’d win nine of them.

“But it was a positive performance, and again last week at Southampton for 60 minutes we were really competitive but then lost ourselves in the last half an hour.

“So going into yesterday’s game, I did feel there was perhaps a false sense of where the group were at and within the camp we really feel like this result had been coming.”

Lathrope opted to move away from the 3-4-3 he has played most of the season and switched to 3-5-2.

“It was ever so slight changes, and the shape you play will never look quite the same for the whole 90 minutes, you’ll have spells where it looks different,” he said.

“But we sent the team out there with a structure, we wanted them to get on the ball and we wanted to be aggressive and front-footed.

“I think that was probably more of the difference than the tweaks we made to the shape.

“However, having another player around Michelle Agyemang, who got two more assists, really helped us.”

The on-loan Arsenal forward has not only shown how dangerous she is in and around the box herself, but also that she can bring others into play.

Top scorer Carly Johns hadn’t found the net in eight games stretching back to late October, but Agyemang teed her up for the opener in yesterday’s game after only two minutes.

“We’re delighted for Carly. She’s a real good professional and I think she’s got a very bright future ahead of her in the game,” Lathrope said.

“She’d been having a bit of a tough time and I’m sure she’d say that herself.

“Her mentality yesterday was exactly where it needed to be, and I don’t think I’ve seen a player cover as much ground as she did yesterday this season.

“There was real fight and fire about her performance. In the week in training when we did some exercises around mentality and bringing the best out of yourself and of others, Carly excelled.

“The goal will do her the world of good and I would not be at all surprised to see her go on and end up in the top two or three scorers in the league.”

At the other end of the pitch, it was only Watford’s second clean sheet of the season.

“The clean sheet was big because it’s an area where we know we need to be better,” Lathrope said.

“We’re not struggling to score goals: we’re the fifth highest scorers in the league but we’ve conceded the most.

“It is without doubt an area of improvement for us, and it will give everyone confidence that we can keep clean sheets against tough teams.

“Going away to Durham is arguably one of the toughest trips you can have, and the willingness to compete with a really physical side should boost the confidence of all the players.”

The long 500-mile round trip meant a rare overnight stop for the players and staff.

“I don’t think Watford Women had won a game where they’d had an overnight stay for years. Someone told me that before the game!” Lathrope laughed.

“It can go one way or the other, and we try to utilise the time to prepare in the best way possible.

“We have a lot of time with each other and we try to build relationships even more, and in my opinion that definitely did help us this weekend.

“It certainly makes the journey home a lot better. When people are sacrificing two days with their family and fitting football in around their jobs, it makes life so much better when you come home from a long away trip with three points.”

The victory means Watford are only bottom of the table on goal difference and they have to play two of the three teams directly above them – Lewes and Reading – during the remainder of the season.

“I’ll be totally honest, and this might be a cliché, but we haven’t really thought about those two games,” admitted Lathrope.

“We know they are big games and we know they are games where we have to take points, there’s no disguising that.

“However, not many teams would have given us a chance of taking the points at Durham.

“So we have arguably the best two teams in the league coming up in Birmingham and Charlton, and we need to go and see if we can nick some points off both of them.

“We’ve beaten Charlton already this season and they haven’t lost another league game. Who says we can’t repeat that?

“We will make sure we give everything to every game, and we hope that by the time we get round to playing Lewes and Reading we are in the position where they are ‘cup final’ games for us.

“We want to be getting ourselves to a place where when we play those games we can go and play what we know we can do.”