SUNDERLAND LADIES kick off their maiden season in the women’s top-flight tomorrow, with new head coach Carlton Fairweather expecting the club’s opening fixture to provide an immediate indication of where they stand.

The Lady Black Cats travel to last year’s Women’s Super League champions Liverpool for their first taste of life in WSL1, with the game being shown live on BT Sport.

Following their promotion from WSL2, Sunderland could hardly have asked for a tougher introduction to life in the top-flight, but having completed the signing of former Everton midfielder Brooke Chaplen in time for tonight’s game, Fairweather is hoping to hit the ground running.

The former Wimbledon professional replaced Mick Mulhern in the summer, and is looking forward to seeing how his new side perform in what is likely to be one of their toughest assignments of the whole campaign.

“It will be a good test, and a good marker of where we are,” said Fairweather. “The fact it’s live on BT Sport is great, and we’re really looking forward to it.

“It’ll help us see where we are in relation to the biggest teams. We’ve made a couple of additions over the summer, but the nucleus of the team has been at the club for a while now and that’s important.

“It’s been a case of building on that nucleus rather than dismantling it and starting again, and we’re all looking forward to getting going now.”

Sunderland dominated WSL2 last season, scoring 47 goals in 18 games as they secured the top-flight place many observers felt should have been theirs when women’s football was reorganised at the advent of the Super League.

The club’s academy has long been renowned as one of the leading breeding grounds in the country, but in the last few years, the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have progressed rapidly as their parent clubs have pumped extensive funds into the women’s game.

It remains to be seen whether Sunderland can compete with squads that train on a completely full-time basis, and Fairweather accepts that survival will be a decent achievement in the club’s first season in the top-flight.

“It’s going to be hard, and the primary aim is about staying up,” he said. “We need to win matches, but I’d like to play some decent football as well because that’s important, for the team and the club. Consolidating by staying up is probably going to be the key.”

Sunderland’s star player is likely to be last season’s leading goalscorer Beth Mead, and the Whitby-born England Under-23 international is looking forward to testing herself against some of the best defenders in the world, such as American international Satara Murray, who joined Liverpool over the winter.

“It’ll develop me as a player to play against better people, and it’ll be good to see how I get on against them,” said Mead. “We’re all excited for the start, and we want to do well. We’re playing against different players now and it’s exciting for everyone.

“I don’t think there’ll be an easy game because all the teams have good players in them. I’m sure we’ll be able to challenge them, but we know it’s going to be harder than last season. That’s why we’ve worked a lot harder in pre-season, and we’re training a lot more.”