Match of the Round
Broadmeadow Magic v Mid Coast FC
Magic Park, Sunday 4pm
Broadmeadow Magic coach Jake Curley is wary of Mid Coast FC’s exciting young team despite Middies’ deflating first round result.
Broadmeadow welcome Middies to Magic Park on Sunday having seen off a much-improved New Lambton side 4-1 in the opening round thanks to a double from returning striker Adriana Konjarski and a hat-trick of Lucy Jerram assists.
Magic face another team in round two also tipped to be much-improved in 2023 in Mid Coast, who are under the watch of former A-League Women’s player Emma Stanbury.
Middies lost 5-0 to Adamstown in their opening fixture, a huge disappointment given the excitement around Mid Coast’s vibrant squad which includes a number of talented young players including Zora Boskovski, Sara King and Marissa Masterantonio as well as the experienced Stanbury, who is acting as player-coach.
Curley said there were some aspects of Magic’s play they would look to sharpen up ahead of the weekend but regardless of round one would not be taking the visitors lightly.
“I watched their first half [against Adamstown] and they moved the ball around really well. They’re young and experience helps in football and particularly in this league,” Curley said.
“But they would have taken some positives out of it and to be fair to them Adamstown are a really hard team to play against, especially first up. They’re aggressive and physical and they try to create mistakes.
“Two [Adamstown] goals were from turnovers in the defensive third but they forced those errors.
“For us we’ve got a few back and we feel like we can always create chances. Probably the only thing [from round one] would be sometimes in possession we played the ball into areas that weren’t really on. In saying that we literally played a completely new shaped that we’d trained once.
“So we’ll work specifically this week on not playing into one certain area of the pitch. But I’m fortunate as a coach that I have very good players. I’ve found you can set up in all these grand plans but if you have dynamic players that can create and dominate games, particularly in first grade, it makes a huge difference.”
Curley was forced to abandon his favoured 4-3-3 formation against New Lambton, instead playing a 4-4-2 due to unavailability and injury.
Former Young Matildas midfielder Kobie Ferguson is still a few weeks away from returning following her ACL injury last season, while Keziah White will be a further couple of weeks with a similar problem.
The good news for Curley is that Liz Shorter and Jennifer Reeves will be available this week, while Gemma Harrison got through 90 minutes last weekend following a long break after having a baby.
While Magic have lost attacker Lucy Kell (Maitland), fullback Alice Munro (work) and experienced goalkeeper Alison Logue with former national league player Rhali Dobson’s playing future also still undecided, Curley believes he now has the best Magic squad he has ever had at his disposal.
“Out of the four years this is the strongest squad. In terms of depth and probably better players overall this year,” Curley said.
“Alison is a fantastic goalkeeper and Rhali is obviously a very good player. But we’ve always had 12 or 13 players. Last year we lost five central midfielders. Maddi Dean was playing the last month of the season with a broken foot. Literally coming to training and leaving training in a moon boot.
“And we still came second to Warners Bay by three points. We generally had 11 first graders and some weeks we were just filling in the blanks.
“Now we’ve signed Kiarra Lewis, Gem Harrison is back with us. We’ve got Jen Reeves, Kobie off the back of her injury. And Ruby Jones and Jacinta Thornton have stepped up from reserve grade. So we’ve got 18 or 19 first graders.”
Stanbury said her side would look forward to the challenge of taking on one of the competition heavyweights, with Middies learning plenty of lessons from round one.
“I know [Broadmeadow are] one of the top teams. I’m expecting it to be another challenge for us,” Stanbury said.
“But I think the first round gave us a lot of lessons to learn. We’ll address them at training and hopefully learn from them. What we don’t want is to come up against a team like Magic and make the same errors.
“We knew how Adamstown play with a sweeper keeper. We let them play around at the back a lot. We got them to do what we wanted a lot. And when the girls got possession they held it well.
“We’ve got a lot of young girls who want to learn. That’s the thing with them, they’ll bounce back from this. They were sad in the dressing room because of the score [against Adamstown]. But I said to them the score didn’t reflect the game and I think they went home with much more belief, walking out of the sheds with a smile and raring to go at training this week.
“I know how much talent and potential we’ve got. And hopefully we can show that in the weeks to come.”
Newcastle Olympic v Maitland FC
Darling Street Oval, Sunday 4pm
Maitland assistant coach Tara Johnson believes the Magpies have what it takes to challenge with Newcastle Olympic near the top of the table this season.
The Magpies travel to Darling Street on Sunday looking to bounce back from their disappointing 2-1 to defeat to Charlestown Azzurri on the opening day of the campaign.
But they will face a buoyant Olympic, fresh from a 16-0 thrashing of reigning premiers and champions Warners Bay to start their season.
Olympic were beaten grand finalists last season but have recruited strongly and are tipped to again be around the summit.
But while Johnson acknowledged Olympic will again be among the teams to beat, Maitland have ambitions of their own.
The Magpies are now in their third season, having won the Women’s State Cup in their maiden campaign. Maitland have also earned respectable back-to-back fifth place finishes but Johnson said they had their sights set higher this season.
“I think it’s going to be a tough challenge obviously. Olympic away is always a difficult one,” Johnson said.
“I expect them to be near the top of the table somewhere. But I anticipate we will be as well.
“Olympic are a strong side. And obviously they didn’t take their foot off the pedal against Warners Bay last week. They kept pushing and kept going.
“We spoke about it before the game last week that the result wouldn’t define our season. It’s one game in a 21-round competition. There is plenty more football to play. But we took the positives in that it was a good second half performance in particular and we’ll take that into this week.”
Maitland hope to have returning coach Keelan Hamilton back on the sidelines after he missed the opening round. Hamilton was due to fly back into Australia from the Kyrgyz Republic on Sunday morning after being away with the Young Matildas at the AFC under-20s Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers.
Warners Bay FC v Adamstown Rosebud JFC
John Street Oval, Sunday 4pm
Adamstown will look to continue their fine start to the season when they face Warners Bay at John Street on Sunday.
Rosebud were impressive in their 5-0 victory over Mid Coast FC in the opening round thanks to a Tanya Jones hat-trick.
New striker Courtney Anderson also celebrated her Adamstown debut with a goal following her move from Charlestown Azzurri.
Adamstown will be looking to make it two wins from two against the Panthers who will attempt to put their horror opening round behind them after they were thrashed 16-0 by Newcastle Olympic.
The defending premiers and champions saw their senior squad decimated in the summer, with almost their entire squad and first grade coach departing for rival clubs.
New Lambton FC v Charlestown Azzurri
Alder Park, Sunday 4pm
Charlestown coach Niko Papaspiropoulos has set his sights on winning as many early season points as possible ahead of Azzurri’s clash with New Lambton on Sunday.
Azzurri travel to Alder Park full of confidence after their hard-fought 2-1 victory over Maitland in round one thanks to Lori Depczynski’s stunning late winner.
While Maitland are expected to challenge for a finals place this season, three of Charlestown’s next four matches are against sides who failed to make the finals in 2022. The other is against a depleted Warners Bay.
“It’s obviously early in the season but you want to win every game. It’s much better to get early points rather than having to chase them at the back end,” Papaspiropoulos said.
“To get that early buffer it’s much easier than trying to claw your way back. It’s extremely critical that we continue to build on that win [over Maitland] because they are a good side who will beat a lot of other teams this season.
“Obviously we need to improve in some areas. I know it wasn’t as clean or composed [against Maitland] but we want to get the three points every game and we did that.
“New Lambton have signed quite well and will be very different to last year. It will be a very interesting game and we need to make sure we prepare and that we’re up for it.”
