The hardest part was meeting up with the rest of the England squad after the game when all I wanted to do was go home and sulk for a few days.

Instead I had to see my friends from Arsenal all happy and celebrating (and so they should be, I would have).

Although Arsenal are the greatest team in women's football and full of internationals, I still believed it was our year and we could have won.
We have some great players and a fantastic management team with Rick and Leanne. Unfortunately Arsenal were just too strong on the day and we all didn't perform to our best.

Belarus was lovely, very picturesque with lots of greenery and the city centres were so clean with interesting buildings.

I felt embarrassed that they had been to England with all our rubbish on the streets.

The camp itself was quite tiring, we were up at 4am on the Tuesday morning to fly, then we managed to fit in three training sessions and lots of meetings before the game on Thursday evening.

The sessions had gone well and I felt like I was buzzing, probably from all the training in the build up to the final and I felt fully fit for the first time in ages.

My knee was okay and I didn't have any other niggles. Then I woke up the morning of the game with shall I say "a dodgy belly" and just felt rough.

I couldn't believe it, I am never ill but it ruled me out of the game.
I was gutted, as I wanted to put the cup final to bed.

The girls did really well and we won 6-1, so we are still in pole position for qualifying. We have a small break with England now and the next game is an easy one against Germany in July.

On my return home, I slept and slept and felt much better for our game against Cardiff on Sunday.

Cardiff have already been relegated. We couldn't get our usual pitch at Tadcaster, so we played on a youth pitch in Wetherby.

We started off very sluggishly and Cardiff played with freedom and energy. In the end, we were beaten 3-2.

It was another kick in the teeth; luckily it doesn't affect our league position, but it was a disgraceful performance from everyone.

We can make the excuse of the pitch, it was very small, very bobbly and it brought both teams down to the same level. Or it could have been a hangover from the final where we played on Nottingham Forest's excellent pitch, in front of 25,000 and against the best team in the country.

On Sunday we played a team that had been relegated, on a poor pitch, in front of maybe 20 fans.

However, this is no excuse whatsoever and we have to want to win every game and this is where we have to learn from the top teams.

even when Arsenal have a bad day, they still don't get beaten. Next season, we have to be more consistent if we want to challenge the top two.

A guy come up to me at the end of the game and said he loved my column in the YEP and watched the final so he made the effort to support us.
So come and watch our last game against Watford at Harrogate Railway. we will make sure it is a better performance.