Well I can’t believe it’s February already, time is flying by and I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s great from a footballing sense; I’ll be back on the field before I know it and rather than watching and pulling my hair out, I’ll be able to get back to what I love doing, which is playing football.
A recap of this season for our Wanderers squad. It was “the season that could have been”, with an enormous amount of potential possessed on paper, but at the end of the day names on paper couldn’t cut it. We were cursed with a fair bit of bad luck across the board, resulting in several injuries to a lot of players, which evidentially took its toll on our season. The difficulties of trying to build a team with the line up changing week in week out due to player availability, didn’t give much chance for momentum to kick in, with some of the easier games slipping through our fingers we just couldn’t get a grip of it, and make a indent on the W-League season. Without a doubt the quality was there, but with several factors and results not going our way, the girls ended the season with a loss to Perth Glory in the final round, which left us second last on the table.
Being not the most memorable on the pitch, there definitely were some highlights amongst the negatives. We had a lot of young blood training with the squad, some making their W-League debut and getting some experience at the top level. Shawna Gordon one of our US players, scored an amazing diving header against Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium, although they lost the game Shawna’s goal was definitely top 5 goals this season. Catherine Cannuli one of our most experienced players announced her retirement after a very long and successful career, she will definitely leave a memorable mark on the women’s game. She has a great character on and off the pitch and was a great teammate to play along side of; I guess that why I’m quite disappointed I didn’t get to play one last game with her. Her freakish talent will be missed; she’s that player that could pull something off out of nowhere, not shy of entertainment to say the least.
That closes the chapter for the WSW 2013/14 W-League season, but the final is yet to be played with Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory to fight for the title. With both teams overflowing with quality it’s going to be a cracker, and a very entertaining game. For the players that haven’t made the final, they have gone into the first Matildas camp of the year down at the AIS. It’s great to hear of so many new players getting their first Matildas call up, magnifying the importance of having the W-League there allowing players to compete week in week out displaying there talent and potential, for Hesterine De Rues (Matildas Coach) to provide the opportunity through The Matildas.
Next on the calendar for The Matildas is Cyprus Cup, 5-12 of March where they will compete against powerhouse France, Netherlands and Scotland. It’s great the girls are getting more internationals under their belt and I can’t wait to get back out there with them. Hopefully next time I’m writing, I will be writing about their successful Cyprus Cup.