WA Over 35's - 2009 Match Reports

WA vs ACT - Friday, October 2, 2009

First game of the Tournament, it was great to see all our hard preparation work paid off- there was great play all over the pitch. I guess there were some nerves out there to start off with and our goalie’s skills were tested on a few occasions, but Sonia proved to be too good! 

With a 1-1 score at halftime we settled into our game, improving our transfers and created some PC’s for scoring opportunities, which saw Pauline putting us ahead with a cracker shot at goal. 

The Coach’s best on ground went to Bugsy (Lauren) who worked tirelessly all game long. Ice baths after the game will hopefully ensure we are ready to shine again tomorrow against SA.

Result: WA 2 - ACT 1 
Goal scorers:  
Best player as nominated by WA:  
Best player as nominated by ACT: 

WA vs SA - Saturday, October 3, 2009

After a much needed warm up (the mercury did not make any effort to rise above 14 degrees, even in the sun) we took the pitch with fewer nerves and plenty of enthusiasm. 
Tony’s structure worked again like a charm and provided plenty of attack. 
Unfortunately our hard work did not result in goals and in addition, a well executed PC from the SA team put us 1-0 behind. 
Our team took that as an incentive to step up even more but went scoreless into half time, after plenty of great opportunities were saved by the strong performing SA goalie and defence. 

Going into the second half with a bit more patience, we managed to get our first goal. 
This goal was soon followed by a PC and a stroke, both resulting in 2 more goals. 
To top it off, our captain Robbie neatly flicked a PC rebound over SA’s goalie to lock in a well deserved win. 

Tomorrow we face an extremely tough game against the Victorians who convincingly beat Tasmania, last year’s Champions, by 3-0 this morning. 

Result: WA 4 - SA 1 

Goal scorers: Lauren, Janine, Jill, Robbie 
Best player as nominated by WA: Katy  
Best player as nominated by SA: 

WA vs VIC - Sunday, October 4, 2009

After a chilly early morning walk (including our daily yoga session lead by Bugsy) and an extensive team meeting we were ready to tackle the Vics, who were not only unbeaten but they also convincingly beat last year’s Grand Finalists, Tassie.  

From the start the Vics were on fire and managed to put us 1-0 behind in the first 5 minutes with a text book field goal.  We fought back hard but were not able to settle into our normal game because of the pressure the opponents put us under.  Two beautiful flicks from the Victorian PC’s could not be stopped and the halftime score was a disappointing 3-0. 

In the second half we started to play our own game and managed to change the first half’s dynamics. Our strong midfield was able to use the short sharp passes to deliver the ball to our strikers. They provided us with plenty of scoring opportunities; including PC’s which were converted in 2 goals, both scored by Robyn.

The Victorians kept their quick play up but our solid defence did a great job preventing any more goals till the last 2 minutes of the game. 

Even though the team was obviously disappointed with our loss, we will take all that we learned today into tomorrow’s game against NSW to get another win on the board. 

Result: WA 2 - VIC 5

Goal scorers: Robbie (2)  
Best player as nominated by WA: Robyn  
Best player as nominated by VIC: 

WA vs NSW - Monday, October 5, 2009

After a slow start yesterday against Victoria, we made sure we did not make the same mistake against NSW, so we came out firing. 
NSW was playing a similar structure to ours which provided a very even game, with scoring opportunities for both teams. 
Even with 10 players on the pitch (someone got a yellow card in the first 5 minutes, that’s a fine!) we really put the pressure on and had plenty of shots at goal, unfortunately not resulting in putting us on the score board. 
We experienced our first rain of the tournament but that did not affect our game and the second half started off pretty much the same as the first, with the same team taking the field. 
The very fast NSW strikers managed to get away from our defence at some stage and score a goal which was quickly followed by another one. 
I guess having fought so hard for 40 minutes, the team obviously was disappointed, but we managed to pull our socks up and had another crack at penetrating the NSW defence. 
However, we did not seem to be able to score, it just wasn’t our day. 
Having played 4 games in a row, I guess we ran out of legs a bit at the end of the game. 
The NSW team had a bye on day one and proved to be just a little less tired and manage to put the ball past Sonia one last time for a 3-0 score. 
We will have 2 days off now and recover with pool sessions, massages and speed boat racing and we’ll be fresh as a daisy, ready to tackle Queensland on Thursday. 

Result: WA 0 - NSW 3 

Best player as nominated by WA: undisclosed 

WA vs QLD - Thursday, October 8, 2009

Not quite the game we would like to reflect on. However, we took whatever we could from this match to take into the next to improve our game. We were struggling a little with Queensland’s speed and the fact we had 3 players out with the flu did not help our cause. We’ll do better tomorrow. 

Result: WA 0 - QLD 8

WA vs TAS - Friday, October 9, 2009

Having learned our lesson yesterday we regrouped and changed a few players around to put pressure on the Tassie defence. We started off well and settled into our own game but Tassie still managed to put the ball in our net. This goal was unfortunately followed by 2 more goals before going into half time. 

Another shuffle of players saw us picking up pace and putting enough pressure on the Tasmanian defence for our own Red Rocket, Pauline to beat the goalie and score a brilliant goal. Our midfield as always did a great job working hard in attack and defence. 
Fullback played a very solid game and our strikers worked incredibly hard. 
We managed to get a few more PC’s but in the remaining game no more goals were scored. I guess you can say we won the second half. 

Tomorrow we’ll be taking on ACT again to play off for 5th spot. 

Result: WA 1 - TAS 3 

Goal scorers: Pauline  
Best players: Liana, Bugsy and Robbie 

Playoff for 5th spot - WA vs ACT - Saturday, October 10, 2009

Can't remember what happened except that we won and that it was a fun day. 

Result: WA 1 – ACT 0 

Goal scorers: 

Congratulations to WA players selected for the Australian O35 Team: Robyn Himbeck, Janine Stevenson