By Tony Leighton

Nottingham Forest are the season's first clear leaders of the Women's Premier League following a 2-1 win against Millwall Lionesses.

Blackburn Rovers and Leeds United lie joint second after Sunday's games.

Two early goals helped Rovers to a 2-1 victory at Reading, while Leeds drew 1-1 with Barnet.

Watford, who had their goalkeeper Lauren Davey sent off in the first half, held on to earn a 1-1 draw at home to Sunderland.

Nottingham Forest 2-1 Millwall Lionesses

Millwall were well on top in the first half but took until 12 minutes after the interval to take the lead through Emma Whitter.

Forest hit back in the closing stages, however, and they snatched victory with goals that both came from Gemma Connor-Iommi free-kicks.

Connor-Iommi's 74th minute strike bounced back off the bar for Lyndsey Cunningham to force home the rebound.

And four minutes later another well taken free-kick led to a goalmouth scramble which was ended with captain Beth Bailey knocking in the winner.

Reading 1-2 Blackburn Rovers

Goals in the first 17 minutes by Nicole Emmanuel and Rhianna Roberts set Blackburn up for their first league win of the campaign.

Newly promoted Reading battled hard to find a way back into the game, but their only reward was an 85th minute penalty converted by Natasha Caswell.

Leeds United 1-1 Barnet

Holly Sandow, last week's hat-trick hero in Barnet's 4-0 League Cup win against Colchester, gave the Bees the lead after just four minutes.

But three minutes into the second half Chloe Foster hit her second goal in successive games to earn the home side a point from a scrappy contest.

Watford 1-1 Sunderland

Sarah Wiltshire took advantage of an under-hit 15th minute back-pass to shoot Watford in front.

But Kelly McDougall equalised from a 32nd-minute penalty after keeper Davey had been dismissed for the foul that led to the spot-kick.

Sunderland pressed hard throughout the second half but, with stand-in keeper Chloe Crook performing well, the Hornets stood firm.

And they almost grabbed an unlikely winner when Cori Daniels headed against the Sunderland crossbar in the dying minutes.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version