Canberra United will be looking to keep their finals aspirations alive when Sydney FC visits McKellar Park this evening with only four games remaining in the Westfield W-League season.
Canberra United will be looking to keep their finals aspirations alive when Sydney FC visits McKellar Park this evening with only four games remaining in the Westfield W-League season.
Currently sitting in 5th after six rounds, the Canberra side needs to take their remaining opportunities this season and the local squad is looking to record it-s first win on home soil this weekend to kick it off.
On a three game undefeated streak, head coach Robbie Hooker sees this fixture against it-s closest rivals as crucial to Canberra United-s season.
“In terms of getting a home final it-s extremely important to put us in a position where we can make a home final,” Hooker said.
“In terms of making the finals it-s not the last roll of the dice but you don-t want to be leaving it to the last game against Queensland to be trying to secure a spot in the finals.”
With Thea Slatyer and Cian Maciejewski returning from suspension, Canberra United head into this round seven fixture at full strength for the first time in the clubs short history.
“It-s about time,” Hooker said.
“Seventh game into the season and finally we-ve got everyone in the one place at the one time fit and healthy.”
“For the first six games we haven-t really had a full squad, there-s always been two key players unavailable whether through injury, suspension or work every weekend so far this season.”
“After this weekend, we can-t really look for any other excuses apart from the fact that if we don-t take our chances, we-re not going to win games.”
At the start of the season, Sydney FC were tagged as competition favourites, but the glamour club is coming off a heavy 3-0 defeat to Queensland last weekend.
“On paper they-ve got a lot of good players, a lot of Matildas and Young Matildas, and they-re a team that deserves to have that reputation along with Queensland,” Hooker said.
“They haven-t exactly lived up to that reputation which is a worry, sooner or later they-re going to start to fire so hopefully it-s not this weekend.”
“I think we-ve got a lot of underrated players in this team along with established Matildas players so we-ve got a point to prove as well being a home game so we want to try to get a win in front of home fans.”
