First three matches of the season played out yesterday, to no real surprises: Adelaide's woeful winless streak continues as they get pounded 1-4 by Canberra. Heyman continues to show why she's one of the best strikers in W-League history - and the best currently in the league - with one of Canberra's two braces. In a rematch of last year's grand final, Sydney hosted Brisbane, though the result this time was a 1-1 draw. US midfielder Rapinoe was relatively quiet in the first of two guest matches for Sydney. Finally, Melbourne "cruised" 2-0 past visiting Perth. Newcastle had the bye this week, and will host Adelaide next week. The other two matches will be Melbourne at Sydney and Perth at Canberra.
How was the Sydney FC vs Brisbane game, did you watch? I am curious to the level of play there. According to match reports Americans Estelle Johnson and Rapinoe played the full 90. Also heard Rapinoe received the 'Player of the Match'.
haha The extent of my following the W-League (thus far) extends only to what I can find on their website or through what other people cite on Wikipeida. ^.^''' Found the mention of PotM after a quick Google search. My impression from the PBP and the match summary made me think she didn't do much, so shows how helpful those were - though FWIW the Facebooker who brought it up said she didn't think Rapinoe deserved it, either, so I dunno.
Oh I got the opposite impression from those who I've heard from. Good news is I think someone is posting the video of the game so we can judge for ourselves! I will post here when it is available.
Rapinoe played okay, was more in the game and effective in 2nd half - not bad since they haven't had much chance to play together. She took a lot of the corners and throw ins (got called on for a foul which was funny - she found it was funny also). She did some good plays and crosses in, as it seems her speciality, but lost possession a few times as well. Yes she did play full 90 as did Johnson And it was hot ! (as in weather) as for the game. Both teams were missing some key players but Sydney created the most chances and pretty much dominated the possession - but the fact it ended 1-1 was not so great seeing as there was a low conversion rate for Sydney given the number of balls in the penalty area (like 16 or something)
Sydney vs Bris game should be online soon too as our TV station that broadcasts the games generally puts them up for a few weeks. The game was average, in my opinion, probably due to the warm weather and both sides missing several "key" players. I thought Pinoe had a solid game, not outstanding, although she did get a lot better as the game wore on. I thought Estelle Johnson actually gelled really well with the team - she seemed to know what was going on with defense as well as getting forward regularly. She played on the left with Pinoe and the two had pretty good anticipation going on. Heyman and Munoz playing together for Canberra this season could really be a strong partnership - as they clearly showed with a brace each the other day. Taryn Hemmings also came close to scoring a couple times. Just some links from the news: The Matildas' coach' thoughts on the games: http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/sermanni-opinion-display/WLeague-up-for-grabs/42031 http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/news-display/westfield-w-league-2011/12-week-1-round-up/42024 Plus some highlights of the Syd-Bris game: http://www.footballaustralia.com.au...d-W-League---Sydney-FC-v-Brisbane-Roar/3527/1
Thanks for the recaps. I am glad to hear Johnson and Rapinoe played well together. I think Ali Lipsher will be available the next game; it will be interesting to see if she starts. I wish I could watch the videos on that footballaustralia website but it is not viewable in N. American.
This got me thinking. Why two guest matches? Why doesn't she just join the team full time? If you combine playing in WPS with the W-League then you have a good-length personal season of roughly 30 games or so. And the two seasons don't overlap at all. Plus few U.S. games are scheduled during the W-League season, so few long trips back to America.
I think any other year that would be possible but because the Olympic qualifiers in Jan and the Nov camp plus probably more games and camps in Dec, I don't think it would work out. Next year the Australian league may get a few NTers full-time though. It does work out perfectly with the WPS schedule.
Lydia Vandenberg played in the Aussie WLeague the last 2 seasons but doesn't seem to be there this season. Same w/ Kendall Fletcher. Anyone know why? Just tired? Or injured? Or have coaching gigs?
Thanks for the heads up. I should have thought of that, especially considering I'm planning to attend those games in January.
This weekend's results: Newcastle 3-0 Adelaide : De Vanna gets a brace as Adelaide's winless streak goes to 29 Sydney 2-1 Melbourne : Rapinoe scores the game winner seven minutes from time; Taylor scored from the spot for Melbourne twenty minutes earlier Canberra 3-2 Perth : With the hat-trick for Canberra, Heymann becomes the all-time leading scorer in the W-League
Wow Heymann is on fire! I am looking forward to following her career. I wonder if she'd ever consider coming to the WPS...
I am still waiting on it to be posted, I am having my doubts at this point but I will be sure to post it here when (or if) it shows up.
australia's abc television showing the games each week, and posting on iview for 1-2 weeks afterwards : http://www.abc.net.au/iview Syd vs. Bris expires in 2 days Can vs. Perth expires in 10 days. This Saturday I'm going to Perth vs. Adelaide in Perth, which is also a big Breast Cancer Foundation fundraiser.
I can't get this to work. I live in America, and when I go that site to watch the match, it says that I have to live in Australia. Therefore, I went and signed up for a free 3-day trial with a proxy server (for Australia), and it now bypasses that screen that used to say that I have to live in Australia to see the video. That's the good news. The bad news, is that when it tries to load the match, it just says "Loading". I walked away from my computer and came back 30 minutes later, and it still said "Loading". I've tried to watch both W-League matches (Syd vs. Bris, Can vs. Perth), and both just say "Loading" forever, and won't load up. I've tried it on Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and FireFox. It doesn't work on any of them.
Going to sponsor me, are you? Why, thank you! Let's talk details . Anyway, thanks for the info about the iView option. I've managed to access the site from Sweden via a VPN tunnel, so it is possible to get around the geo-blocking.
This round: Perth 2-1 Adelaide: Quigley scores again but can't put the Reds into the win column. Sydney 0-1 Canberra: The girls from the capital extend their lead at the top of the table thanks to a Sykes strike. Brisbane 2-3 Newcastle: The Jets come from behind with De Vanna scoring two penalities. With this result, both of last year's Grand Finalists have been passed in the table, Sydney giving way to Newcastle for second and Brisbane losing fifth to Perth. Hey all, guess what? The season is now 1/4 over. There will be another bottom-of-the-table clash next week, so I'm personally hoping Adelaide finally snaps its 30-game winless streak. As bad as Brisbane has started this year, though, they are a team that's never missed the Grand Final before, so....
Season completion: 1/3 Canberra 2-1 Melbourne : Melbourne kept Heyman off the scoreboard for the second week, but Kendall Fletcher's late goal is not enough to overcome the 2-0 deficit that piled up anyway. The capital girls remain perfect and extend their reach at the top of the leaderboard to five points. Newcastle 1-4 Sydney : Five goals, five different goalscorers, with Walsh and Garriock on the board for Sydney. Sydney regains 2nd in the table, getting a PPG increase of 0.42 while Newcastle's PPG drops 1.00. Adelaide 1-2 Brisbane : The second consecutive bottom-of-the-table clash once again left Adeliade unlucky and pointless. Last year's champions jump to fourth while Adelaide's winless streak extends to 31. Adelaide have the bye next week. Also expect some stats as I (like playing with numbers so) will begin looking at the playoff picture (yes, already - two teams will already have half their season complete).