Albion have been told to be brave with the ball as they look to take the Barclay’s Women’s Super League by storm.

And Fran Kirby says their head coach really means it.

Dario Vidosic and his new-look team caused a bit of a stir in the WSL’s opening week. Well, sort of.

Despite the 4-0 win over Everton, and an historic hat-trick by Kiko Seike, it felt like most of the national attention was focussed very much on the first 2-2 draw of the weekend between Arsenal and Manchester City, with Vivianne Miedema’s return to North London.

But there was great excitement around the Broadfield Stadium as the Seagulls ultimately took Everton apart.

Kirby’s presence was a big part of that buzz.

She looked like she was having a ball against the Toffees and her afternoon was capped when she tucked away a penalty, taking spot-kick honours from Vicky Losada.

Kirby enjoyed herself and the football Albion are being encouraged to play by Vidosic.

She told The Argus: “He wants to be brave. He wants us to take moments and he wants us to take risks.

“He wants us to control the game and damage the opposition as much as possible.

“You hear a lot of teams say they want to play a certain way but, when things get hard, they change up.

“He wants us to keep playing that way and not be scared of making mistakes.

“I think you could see that (on Saturday).

“Even if people turned the ball over, we still continued to try and play that way.

“That’s the only way you are going to improve and get good at your style of play.

“He is drilling that message into us.

“You need to be told to keep trying it, keep trying it because you can shy away.

“He has been great for that and I have really enjoyed working with him.”

Albion had 60% of possession against Everton and played 483 accurate passes, a success rate of 88%, leading to eight efforts on target.

Only Manchester City, with exactly 500 at the Emirates, had more accurate passes in the first round of fixtures.

The only team who had more efforts on target were Tottenham, with a massive 17 as they thumped newly-promoted Crystal Palace 4-0.

Kirby said: “Teams are going to work out the way we are playing and how do we change the way  we do things when teams work us out?

“It is just in little areas that could affect us when you are playing against the top teams.

“I think for any new team, you always want to improve on something.

“Whether that is the way you build-up, the way you press, your set-pieces.

“There are all these things that you can improve on.

“Hopefully we can keep building that and keep building the confidence in the group and keep going forward.

“He is a football guy. He wants us to play football.

“You can see the way we want to play and the way he wants to play.”

And, of course, individual brilliance as part of the team pattern always helps.

It was impossible not to draw similarities between Seike and Kaoru Mitoma both in terms of style of play and impact.

But even Mitoma has never scored a hat-trick for the Seagulls.

Kirby said of right winger Seike: “She is someone who loves to shoot – and if you don’t shoot, you don’t score.

“She is going to have moments when it is not going to come off.

“This time everything went into the top corner.

“We are delighted for her but you can see the quality she has when she strikes the ball and when she is running with the ball, one versus one.

“I’m lucky. I can just get the ball and give it to her and I know she is going to do something with it.

“She is a delight to play with.

“She works hard, she wants to improve.

“If she keeps scoring goals like that, I am sure everyone will be happy with her.”