Canberra United will be looking to continue their impressive form on the road when the team heads west to take on the Perth Glory in Round Six of the Westfield W-League on Sunday evening at Members Equity Stadium.
Canberra United will be looking to continue their impressive form on the road when the team heads west to take on the Perth Glory in Round Six of the Westfield W-League on Sunday evening at Members Equity Stadium.
With two victories from three attempts away from home, Canberra will be looking to repeat their Queensland and Melbourne performances in the west to collect the three points to remain in the top four.
While a loss won-t determine the season, the three points are important as Canberra United aims to finish in the top two with only five rounds remaining.
“In terms of us making the semi finals, it-s not do or die but if we-re serious about trying to host a home final and try to finish as high up on the ladder as we can, obviously it-s a big game,” head coach Robbie Hooker said.
“If it happens to be 0-1 again, I don-t think anyone-s going to complain but obviously the key to that is how well we can defend and obviously try to score some goals.”
Scoring has been difficult for Canberra United so far with season with only four goals from five matches but Robbie Hooker wary of a Perth outfit who-s conceded the most goal of any Westfield W-League team this season (16).
“I don-t think you can read too much into their (goals conceded) record to be honest,” Hooker said.
“I certainly don-t see this as an easy opportunity for us.”
“At this stage when you-ve only scored four goals in five games it doesn-t matter who you come up against and what record they-ve got, it-s about making sure we-ve got to try to create chances again and secondly, try and put them away this time.”
Canberra-s task has been made even more difficult with the suspensions of key defender and midfielder, Thea Slatyer and Cian Maciejewski respectively, but the side welcome-s Hayley Crawford making her debut and Rhian Davies who made herself available for selection.
But it-s the goalkeeping position causing headaches for both sides with the Perth Glory rumored to have signed local, Luisa Marzotto from Weston Creek in the Club Pink Women-s Premier League (A.C.T.) while Canberra United reserve keeper Maja Blasch is overseas with the Australia School Girls team.
“At this stage, I have nobody,” Hooker said regarding a possible reserve keeper for this weekend with Blasch over season.
“Unless someone gets injured, I don-t think we-re going to nominate anybody to be the reserve keeper.”
“If Lydia [Williams] gets injured than we-ll have to throw a field player in goal.”
“We don-t have a specialist reserve goal keeper for this weekend so if we have to substitute goal keepers for whatever reason you can still only use three substitutions so I don-t see a disadvantage at all for us by not nominating a goalkeeper on the bench.”
“There are a couple of girls there that is handy between the goals.”
“In the unlikely event there-s an injury, you-ve just got to roll with the punches”
Canberra United 1.Lydia WILLIAMS (gk), 2.Rhian DAVIES, 3.Amy CHAPMAN, 4.Bronwyn STUDMAN, 5.Sasha MCDONNELL, 7.Ellie BRUSH (c), 8.Rebecca KITING, 9.Grace GILL, 10.Hayley CRAWFORD, 12.Kara MOWBRAY, 14.Ashleigh SYKES, 15.Nicole SYKES, 16.Snez VELJANOVSKA, 17.Christine WALTERS, 18.Lucy ALLAN, 19.Jennifer BISSET
*One to be omitted
In: 10.Hayley CRAWFORD (return from injury), 16.Snez VELJANOVSKA (promoted), 17.Christine WALTERS (promoted), 18.Lucy ALLAN (promoted)
Out: 13.Thea SLATYER (suspended – 1 week), 11.Cian MACIEJEWSKI (suspended – 1 week), 20.Maja BLASCH (Australian School Girls)
Unavailable: 6.Caitlin MUNOZ (knee – 1 week)
Perth Glory hosts Canberra United at Members Equity Stadium on Sunday evening 4:00pm local time or 6:00pm AEST.
