Speaking after signing her new deal, Leishman was quick to express her excitement ahead of the new campaign, in which she is raring to compete for silverware.
“I’m obviously delighted. It’s the team I’ve supported my whole life, it’s the team my family have supported for their whole lives as well, so delighted to be back here and excited for the next season ahead.”
“Silverware is massive for any club, not just Hibs. In general, everyone wants to win trophies and I think you want to play to win. At the end of the day, at this level, you don’t really play for fun, you do play to win. You see in every girl that plays – they want to win; they want to be lifting trophies.
“Obviously, last season we didn’t win anything, but this season we’ll come together as a group and discuss what we want to do.
Leishman has been a Hibee her whole life and has been a part of the club since under-13 level. The fullback praised the player pathway from academy to first team at the club, complimenting Dean Gibson for bleeding young talent in from the youth setup.
“I think it proves to any girl that’s down there that it is achievable. I think, on Dean’s behalf, you can see that he does progress players. You’ve got Eilidh [Adams], you’ve got Rosie [Livingstone]… he’s pulled me up, he’s pulled Kirsty up - he does look at the academy.
“For any girl that’s down there, or any girl that’s looking to start, I think you can see that Hibs’ player pathway is very successful. You’ve got players like Shiv [Hunter] and Jo [Murray] as well, they’ve come up… Ellis [Notley] – there’s a lot of the girls in the team that have come through the academy. It’s been really good, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of playing.”
As a Hibs fan, derby victories will mean more than most to Leishman, and Hibs kept a perfect record against Hearts last season, winning three from three. The first two derbies came at Easter Road and Tynecastle respectively, with a record domestic attendance being broken at the Easter Road encounter. Leishman spoke on her desire to keep up that record against Hibs’ city rivals going into the new campaign.
“You see on social media when you win a derby, you see the fans reacting so much, it comes from all over. Running out at Easter Road, I don’t think anything will compare to that being a Hibs fan.
“Obviously, we set the record attendance when we played here, which was great, and while winning at Easter Road was good, turning Hearts over in the derby at Tynecastle was also a bit special because it’s their home patch. Winning all three was great for us and it was something that we wanted to do.”
“We want to keep that record going – hopefully we win all the derbies next year! Of course, we also want to get to cup finals, we want to challenge for the league… it’s something that’s naturally in your blood to do these things, so of course we want to win silverware and keep winning derbies.”
