W-League blog

Hi all, shameless bit of self-promotion but I have set up a W-league blog, which given I am based in Canberra, will be mainly be about Canberra United. So if you have a minute, I'd love it if you could pop on by!

www.girlswithgame.blogspot.com

Also, in my other actual paid role, make sure you pick up The Canberra Times on Friday for the W-League season preview lift-out with player profiles, draw, info on all the other teams etc.
Thanks!

welcome girlswithgame, glad to hear about the blog and the lift out, i'll leave this thread here as the thread for all of you canebrra united related blogs.

If you could post your blogs here, it would be much appreciated. Please continue to post in other threads.

Canberra United setting the trend again

So last year Canberra United coach Robbie Hooker went out on a limb and picked the youngest captain, by about five years, in the Westfield W-League - Ellie Brush. This year Brush turned 21, and as such won't be the youngest captain in the league, the new title goes to Brisbane Roar's new leader Clare Polkinghorne, 20.

But Canberra have still found a way to be out in front as trend-setters. So let me introduce, United's co-captains Lydia Williams and Ellie Brush!
The pair - who celebrate their 10th anniversary playing together this year, they played in an ACT schoolgirls team together in 1999 - will share the captains arm-band this year. But who will have it for the first game this Saturday against Brisbane Roar? Both joked at the press conference yesterday that they would fight it out to decide.
So they will be the first co-captains in Westfield W-League history, but it will also be a first for Williams and goal-keepers overall as she said, "I think most people are hesistant about giving a goal-keeper the captaincy because really, you have to stay in the box, so if something happens up the field you can't run out and ask the ref what happened there, but I'm really happy I'm getting this chance and working with Ellie will be great too."
Williams has captained the Young Matildas before, in World Cup qualifiers in China, while this will be Brush's second consecutive season as a Canberra United captain.

Really interesting read. Well Done!

Preview

SATURDAY at Ballymore, Brisbane Roar v Canberra United, 3pm.
The grand final rematch that isn't really as Canberra will have a total of eight players different from their team that lost 2-0 last year. In are their two Taiwanese imports, Emily van Egmond, Ellyse Perry and players that were on the roster last year but didn't make the grand final like Snez Veljanovska and Ellie Raymond. Also have named Sally Shipard, but she is only an outside chance to play as still waiting for her clearance from her Spanish futsal club to come through. For Queensland, they have named Pam Bignold, a former Matildas defender and Aivi Luik, who you can read all about here. But the most surprising selection is Sasha McDonnell.
At last weekend's Matildas camp, McDonnell and Kara Mowbray, who both played for Canberra in season one, didn't have clubs. But now Brisbane Roar have managed to squeeze Sasha in as their 20th player, while Mowbray will play for Melbourne. It means that McDonnell could play against her old team, but she isn't likely to start in the Queensland team stacked with Matildas.
The match of the round and will be very interesting to see if United can keep the form they showed against the Matildas team in that practice game last week. Pic, Sasha McDonnell in last year's grand final, will be wearing orange this weekend for Brisbane.

Round 4 Westfield W-League wrap

So to think, at the end of next week we'll be halfway through the season and then things will really start to get interesting. But in this short season, have Canberra United already left their run too late, despite notching up their first win in Round 4? And have the Mariners already secured their spot in the finals thanks to a rampaging 5-1 win over Newcastle? All that and more in one post. Apologies for the lateness, but am still being affected by killer flu.

PERTH GLORY 1 (Alex Singer 48') bt ADELAIDE UNITED 0 at Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide.
So another loss to the Reds, but they seem to get getting closer every time. Still, are now the only team to not have a goal next to its name after four rounds. Come on Adelaide, so close! From all accounts, including Tom Sermanni's that I caught at the Canberra United match, Sam Kerr was on fire for Perth Glory. Kerr came on after just 31mins, replacing Lisa de Vanna (who was not at all happy with that), but then starred. Speaking to Canberra's Emily van Egmond yesterday about the upcoming under-16 Asian Cup - she was similary glowing about Kerr. Kerr was the one who completely changed the scoreline in the ASEAN Cup final last week, and looks one to watch as a bolter for the Matildas senior AFC cup challenge next year. Even Adelaide's captain said they couldn't do much against her when speaking to Sportal after the game.
"Sam Kerr came on a bit earlier than we expected, but she played a brilliant game, she was fast," Christina Papageorgiou said. She also said they would just need to focus on goalscoring first, winning next. "We've got to score some goals first (before winning a game), so we'll look at putting the ball in the back of the net this week at training."
MATCH DETAILS
Referee: Jacqui Melksham
Assistant referees: Airlie Keen and Skye McCabe
Fourth official: Ana Nevjestic
Adelaide United line-up: 1.Sian McLAREN (gk), 2.Ebony WEIDENBACH, 3.Renee HARRISON, 7.Racheal QUIGLEY, 11.Georgia CHAPMAN (10.Marijana RAJCIC 67’), 12. Katerina BEXIS, 14.Donna COCKAYNE (9.Angela FIMMANO 70’), 16.Christina PAPAGEORGIOU (c), 17.Karina ROWETH, 18.Rochelle KUHAR, 19. Nenita BURGESS (15.Tenneille BOALER 61’)
Substitutes Not Used: 20.Kristi HARVEY (gk).
Yellow Cards: Nil.
Red Cards: Nil.
Perth Glory line-up: 1. Emma WIRKUS (GK), 3. Carys HAWKINS, 5. Shannon MAY, 8. Tanya OXTOBY (C), 9. Dani CALAUTTI, 11. Lisa DE VANNA (4. Sam KERR 31’), 13. Elisa D’OVIDIO (6. Ella MASTRANTONIO 88’), 14. Collette McCALLUM, 15. Alex SINGER, 16. Sadie LAWRENCE, 17. Marianna TABAIN.
Substitutes Not Used: 7. Elissia CANHAM, 20. Zoe PALANDRI.
Yellow Cards: Nil.
Red Cards: Nil.

CENTRAL COAST MARINERS 5 (Lydia VANDENBERGH 5’, Michelle HEYMAN 21’/25’, Kendall FLETCHER 65’, Tudy CAMILLERI 82’) bt NEWCASTLE JETS 1 (Tara ANDREWS 88') at Wanderers Oval, Newcastle.
So congratulations to the Jets, because at least now they have scored a goal! The Mariners did this fairly easily though and were up 3-0 after the first 24minutes. Congratulations to Michelle Heyman as well who is now leading the golden boot standings with four. The Mariners are now just one point behind Brisbane after four rounds and are offensively the most dangerous team. They have scored a whopping 10 goals in four games, ahead of Brisbane's effort of six (and remember three of those came in one game against Canberra). The little team that could is how the men's Mariners team is often described, not full of stars, but an honest hard-working team that gets results - the female Mariners seem to be doing the same. Except that of course, the girls are actually based in Sydney, not Gosford, as they are just the other half of the NSWIS team. But wherever they are based, they have had an amazing start to the season and deserve second spot. Speaking to Sportal reporters, Coach Stephen Roche was of course, happy with the 5-1 win. “We have been working on playing three up front and using that to get in behind the defence and it worked perfectly today,” he said.
“From there it was good finishing that gave us the win.”
Newcastle vice-captain Amber Neilson said the Jets were happy with the second-half. “We needed to be organized a bit more and communication let us down. But they knocked the ball around really well.”
“We had a run at them in the second half and showed lots of heart but just couldn’t convert our chances.”
Also congrats to Heyman who was awarded Football NSW's Platinum Medal for best player in the Arrive alive Women’s Premier League. Heyman scored 24 goals in 21 games in helping her Illawarra Stingrays team to the premiership and championship. More here.
MATCH DETAILS
Referee: Kirralee Gardner
Assistant referees: Tanya de Boer and Catherine Nash
Fourth official: Penelope Nash
Newcastle Jets line-up: 1. Alison LOGUE (gk), 3. Pelay INGLES, 6. Amber NEILSON, 7. Gema SIMON (2. Libby SHARPE 44’), 10. Hayley CRAWFORD (c), 11. Carlie IKONOMOU (8. Bronte BATES 70’), 12. Emma STEWART (13. Caitlyn JARVIE 59’), 16. Kirstyn PEARCE, 17. Maddy SEARL, 18. Leia SMITH, 19. Tara ANDREWS.
Substitutes Not Used: 20. Emma-Kate DEWHURST (gk).
Yellow Cards: Amber NEILSON 55’, Kirstyn PEARCE 65’.
Red Cards: Nil.
Central Coast Mariners line-up: 1. Jillian LOYDEN (gk), 2. Caitlin COOPER (c), 3. Lyndsay GLOHE, 4. Rachael DOYLE, 8. Kelly GOLEBIOWSKI (13. Tudy CAMILLERI 65’), 9. Renee ROLLASON, 10. Kendall FLETCHER, 11. Michelle HEYMAN (16. Jenna KINGSLEY 71’), 12. Samantha SPACKMAN (17. Britt SIMMONS 78’), 14. Ashleigh CONNOR, 19. Lydia VANDENBERGH.
Substitutes Not Used: 20. Rachel COOPER (gk).
Yellow Cards: Caitlin COOPER 85’, Ashleigh CONNOR 90’.
Red Cards: Nil.


CANBERRA UNITED 2 (TSENG Shu O 27’/48’) bt MELBOURNE VICTORY 0 at McKellar Park, Canberra.
I told you I had a good feeling about this one Canberra fans, finally a scoreline reflecting the performance. Tseng's first goal was magic too. With supreme confidence, she took about three touches to get around Barbieri who could only watch from behind as the girl with the wonderful purple hair finished past her into an empty net. The next wasn't quite as pretty, a toe poke that just beat Barbieri to the ball and trickled in slowly, but it was just as deserved. Canberra's non-local new players this year, Emily van Egmond and Ellyse Perry, were also outstanding. As was Cian Maciejewski who I think changed United's fate when she dispossessed Katrina Gorry on the wing - when no-one, no-one was expecting it - early in the second half and Ash Sykes almost scored. From that momentum United just kept going and really it was hard to fault anyone. United coach Ray Junna was happy, but still a little frustrated that with all their chances they couldn't kill the game off earlier. Melbourne Victory captain Tal Karp was bitterly disappointed. It's the Victory's third loss in three W-League games to United and despite playing well in the first three rounds, they just didn't have much at all against Canberra. "We weren't happy with the result, we were really disappointed to lose three points and really, that's three times now we have lost to Canberra, so hopefully we can get better from here," Karp said.
So what happened? "To be honest, our preparation hasn't been the best," Karp said. "We have five players that come in from Queensland and so we can't train with them during the week, so it's been a bit disjointed. But ultimately Canberra took it to us today and we just weren't able to compete, we were just behind the play too often.
"Canberra did really well, they have a really young team but they moved the ball around really well and were threatening. We are going to have to do a whole lot better next time we come up against them."
MATCH DETAILS
Referee: Sara Hodson
Assistant referees: Allyson Flynn and Greg Taylor
Fourth official: Gary Vandeburgt
Canberra United line-up: 1. Lydia WILLIAMS, 4. LIN Chiung Ying, 7. Ellie BRUSH (c), 8. Emily VAN EGMOND (12. Snez VELJANOVSKA 82’), 9. Grace GILL, 10. TSENG Shu O, 11. Cian MACIEJEWSKI (2. Rebecca KITING 64’), 14. Ashleigh SYKES, 15. Nicole SYKES, 16. Ellyse PERRY, 19. Jennifer BISSET (5. Kahlia HOGG 60’)
Substitutes Not Used: 20. Jocelyn MARA.
Yellow Cards: Ashleigh SYKES 61’
Red Cards: Nil.
Melbourne Victory line-up: 1. Melissa BARBIERI (c), 2. Vedrana POPOVIC, 3. Marlies OOSTDAM (19. Enza BARILLA 68’), 4. Tal KARP (14. Selin KURALAY 50’), 5. Laura ALLEWAY, 6. Maika RUYTER-HOOLEY, 8. Katie THORLAKSON (10. Deanna NICESKI 68’), 9. Stephanie CATLEY, 11. Julianne SITCH, 12. Monnique KOFOED, 13. Katrina GORRY.
Substitutes Not Used: 20. Nicole PAUL (gk)
Yellow Cards: Maika RUYTER-HOOLEY 66’
Red Cards: Nil.


SYDNEY FC 1 (Catherine PAASKE 34’) drew with BRISBANE ROAR 1 (Kyah SIMON 46' OG) at Sydney Football Stadium.
And just as I thought it might be, the match of the round ended up being a draw as there just wasn't much between these two teams. Although, I didn't expect that Sydney would score both goals. Since the Round 1 win over Canberra, Brisbane have only scored one goal in each game. Still I think probably that yesterday's game was just quality defence more than anything keeping the score very low. Paaske's goal sounds like a ripper, very much like Tseng Shu O's from Canberra. The Danish International has taken a couple of weeks to settle in, but now seems like she's getting into it. And as a former nominee for FIFA World Player of the Year, that's a very dangerous sign for others than Sydney FC. As far as I'm aware, the only other currently playing in the Westfield W-League who has been nominated for that award is Matilda Lisa de Vanna. But with Paaske having played more internationals than de Vanna, does that make her the best player in the W-League currently? Hmm.. perhaps a topic for discussion later this week.
MATCH DETAILS
Referee: Rebecca Durcau
Assistant referees: Sarah Ho and Leanne Smith
Fourth official: Laura Elliott
Sydney FC line-up: 1.Nikola DEITER (gk), 2. Teigan ALLEN (16. Linda O’NEILL 75’), 3. Danielle BROGAN, 4. Alesha CLIFFORD, 6. Servet UZUNLAR, 7. Heather GARRIOCK (c), 8. Julie RYDAHL (12. Michelle CARNEY 82’), 9. Sarah WALSH (19. Leena KHAMIS 61’),10. Kylie LEDBROOK, 11. Catherine PAASKE, 15. Kyah SIMON.
Substitutes Not Used: 20. Carla MONFORTE (gk).
Yellow Cards: Danielle BROGAN 58’
Red Cards: Nil.
Brisbane Roar line-up: 1. Casey DUMONT (gk) 2. Kate MCSHEA, 3. Karla REUTER (19. Ellen BEAUMONT 45’), 4. Clare POLKINGHORNE (c) 5. Brooke SPENCE, 6. Joanne BURGESS, 8. Elise KELLOND-KNIGHT, 10.Lana HARCH, 11. Aivy LUIK, 16. Lauren COLTHORPE 18. Courtney BEUTEL (9. Jenna TRISTRAM 65’).
Substitutes Not Used: 14.Sasha MCDONNELL, , 20. Kate STEWART (gk)
Yellow Cards: Kate MCSHEA 81’.
Red Cards: Nil.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2009


fairgame magazine... would it work in Australia?

So for the last few weeks while I prepare to nod off to sleep I've had the pleasure of flipping through a few issues of the UK edition of fairgame magazine, a whole magazine devoted to that one thing I am quite partial to - women's football.

Going by its credits page, it's a pretty small team with editor Jen O'Neill and news editor Wilf Fifth, plus a person each in design, advertising and marketing. It's published by its own company, fairgame publishing, as I bet that no other magazine stable wanted to take it on.

Basically it's all about women's football in the UK, as obviously, that's where it's based. The latest edition I recieved, April 2009, has stories about English coach Hope Powell and winning the Cyprus Cup (the first thing the English girls have won in a while), a wrap-up of the women's FA Cup, a story on how the FA has cut its promised summer league and a start for professional women's football with it, Arsenal coach Vic Akers on finishing up his 22-year-career in charge of the girls, team profiles of Arsenal and Sunderland who will play in the Cup Final, posters, a day in the life of a pro player, regional round-up, a few more profiles, fitness workouts, a strength training session with Sky Blue FC's fitness guy and new drills, which this issue is all to do with long range passing. In short, it's fantastic.

I am surprised to read though that the women's leagues in the UK aren't professional. Not standard wise, as I've never seen it but I bet it's fantastic as it's been going around a lot longer than other comps, but because of stories like the one from Aresnal ladies. It's the story on Vic Akers who has managed the ladies for the past 22-years (yep, that's right 22!), but is hanging up his coaching boots this year. But in the story it says he'll be going onto general manager and will continue to oversee player recruitment, but it will still be unpaid. Akers paid job is to be Arsene Wenger's kit man. So the coaches aren't even paid? It seems that way. After Akers bowed out, Sunderland's coach is the next longest serving one. He's a police constable. Also in that story, it seems there IS a professional league on the way. But it's not there yet.

So Australia already has a semi-professional league, could we sustain a magazine like this? It seems America couldn't. If you google fairgame magazine it comes up with an option to go to the American or UK website, except that the American one doesn't work anymore and further googling found fans who were last month asking questions about their subscriptions. That one has apparently gone bust, or I hope is just taking a break? As to ride on the amazing wave the American girls have over there, ie the players can afford to live off the cashola they earn from playing, would be a terrible thing to do.

But anyway, back to an Australian edition. In terms of content, I suppose a down under one would be a bit more limited just by the fact there are eight W-League teams and the season only goes for 10 weeks. That in itself makes it a little tricky to cover regulary over a year. (Although, I can't quite get a gauge on how often UK fairgame is published, the last one is from April, the new one came out last week, but they don't seem to be regular either). Matildas are in a down period at the moment, but fingers crossed that will pick up in the next year with World Cup qualifiers and fingers crossed, a World Cup for the Aussie girls. There would obviously be the same sort of options to do with fitness and technical drills, which I think is fantastic, isn't that what young girls here would like more than anything else? A female taking them through how they approach each skill? And profiles, posters etc would also be easy to put together. I think perhaps the one thing that would determine just how well it would work is advertising. Fairgame mag has a LOT of advertisers. There is 14 full page ads and another few that take the total up to 16 pages of ads in 45 pages. Plenty of the ads are from different soccer schools in England offering programs, as well a leagues, equipment and then more soccer schools. Would there be enough advertisers to support it in Australia? It's an interesting concept though and given soccer is the fastest growing sport for women in Australia, perhaps its one with merit in the future. I know I would like to have the option of a fairgame magazine as opposed to other women's mags like Cleo or Dolly.


So anyway, if you are interested, I recommend you support fairgame and give their magazine a go. I ordered them here and for about $15 had two issues in Australia within a week. Ok, there are a lot of English words that might drive you a little mad, like gaffer, and it's pretty much only has UK news, but it offers an interesting perspective on women's football and things like the fitness and skills pages are obviously easily translated world-wide. This is the latest issue. I'll be hopping on to order one right now. Also, apologies for my terrible attempt to get pics of the pages, but I wanted to put something up to show you what it's like.