Round Three of the Westfield W-League for our girls this week was a road trip to Geelong to face the Melbourne Victory.
We needed to bounce back from what was a tough week and turn all our energy towards our match up with the Victorians. It was hard for me personally as I had to go away for work all week which meant I couldn’t be around the team to help lift spirits and of course it meant training on my own; which we all know cannot replicate team sessions.
By all accounts our girls trained well and when I met the team at Newcastle Airport the mood was far brighter than when I left the girls last Sunday.
We arrived in Geelong and went for a light session which was a mix of some fun small sided games to get our legs moving after our travel and some shadow play shape based on what we thought the Victory would throw at us come game day.
A few of us girls went for our normal pre-game morning coffee to help fill in the time before kickoff, and generally to make game day on the road help replicate what we would do at home.
Time came to hit the bus for the game and after literally a few minutes we arrived at Simonds Stadium, home of the Geelong Cats AFL team. There was to be no excuses as the pitch resembled a bowling green and was to me one of the best fields we could have played on.
We started brightly and the game was a fairly even contest, both sides had chances early on but to no avail. Our young goalkeeper Eliza was brilliant again and seriously kept us in the contest. The progression of Eliza is a major positive in our season so far and one that we are all proud of.
Unfortunately for us we conceded right on the stroke of half time from another set piece. Something we seriously need to look at and fix as we don’t want this to become our Achilles Heel.
The match finished at 1-0 and as you all saw we lost Stacey Day to a silly red card.
We host Perth Glory this weekend at home and everyone who has played in the Westfield W-League knows that the travel from Perth to Newcastle is one of the hardest trips to make. We need to capitalise on this and get our first win of the season.
Perth are a great team and have some fantastic players. We will need all the support we can get so I am speaking to the whole of Newcastle when I say please get out to Wanderers Oval this Saturday at 4.30pm and help bring us home.
Club Captain for Westfield W-League side Newcastle Jets, Hayley has represented Australia at many levels including the Matildas. Catch the W-League every week at your local ground or if you can’t make the game watch it on ABC1. Read Hayley’s other columns for The Football Sack!
This season, the Newcastle Jets launched a Facebook page just for their W-League team, be sure to like it.
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