The Liberty A-League season continues to bring more twists and turns, sparking plenty of
hot topics. Here are some of the key talking points the Dub Zone panel discussed following
another action-stacked weekend.
HAS VINE DONE ENOUGH FOR A MATILDAS’ CALL-UP?
Sydney FC’s Cortnee Vine has been dubbed as one of the Liberty A-League’s hottest
commodities, but this season hasn’t panned out the way she would’ve hoped thus far.
The 24-year-old has only managed to score a single goal this term and her recent struggles were laid bare in Sydney’s 2-0 loss against Western United.
Vine previously expressed her ambition to earn a starting spot in Tony Gustavsson’s side for
the Women’s World Cup which is fast approaching, but she’ll need to conjure up an
upturn in form to prove her credentials.
In Dub Zone’s World Cup Watch segment, Liberty A-League commentator Teo Pellizzeri gave his take on whether Vine’s underwhelming performances have dented her hopes of representing Australia at the showpiece event.
“No (she hasn’t been dominating) and it’s been surprising in that respect because Cortnee
Vine did stay in Australia and play in the NPL during the winter, didn’t rack up the goals or
bully that competition either,” he said.
“We’ve just come off this game against Western United where Aimee Medwin who is a bit of
an underrated player – was actually an under-17 Matilda and has been out of sight, out of
mind – she put Cortnee Vine in her pocket.
If anything you want your Matildas in top form, dominating and saying ‘I’m undroppable – you need to pick me, but we’re not seeing that at the moment’.
Former Matilda Grace Gill added: “I think the expectation around Cortnee Vine is that she (should) absolutely be lighting this league up and at the moment she’s falling short of that and Medwin did excellently against her last week.
“For Cortnee Vine, she’s a pretty level-headed kind of character and I think she would be
the first to put her hand up and say ‘look I’m not at the level I would like to be or at the level I need to be’.
“So certainly for her, she needs to be pushing into these next couple of months to get that
call-up from the Matildas.”
BARBIERI QUESTIONS QUALITY OF AUSTRALIAN GOALKEEPING COACHES
There has been plenty of debate surrounding who should be the first-choice goalkeeper for
the Matildas when the Women’s World Cup rolls around.
The outstanding displays by Melbourne Victory’s Casey Dumont and Sydney FC’s Jada
Whyman beg the question if domestic players should be afforded the opportunity to impress and possibly be selected as third-choice.
However, former Matildas captain Melissa Barbieri gave an honest assessment of the quality of goalkeeping in the domestic league in her interview with Dub Zone, calling out a lack of appropriate coaching methods.
“… I’m gonna ask how good are the goalkeeping coaches at each of the teams? Barbieri
said.
“So for me, a lot of the mistakes that are happening in the goalkeeping realm and a lot of the international goalkeepers coming in from overseas (comes down to) what we’re doing in terms of coaching.
How are we getting the girls up to scratch? What feedback are they getting game in and game out because sometimes you think they’re not being taught or being told what to do or reviewed.
“I do countless review sessions of every game and every training session and that’s why my
goalkeeper coach is one of the Australian goalkeeper coaches, so it’s up to what resources
are given.
“I know that a lot of the mistakes that are happening are down to experience, but also the
ones who are making the mistakes are also very experienced goalkeepers so that just says to me that there’s something going wrong in terms of the feedback and what they need to be doing to make those saves.”
With neither Dumont nor Whyman appearing on the international stage, Rosengard’s
Teegan Micah is tipped for the first-choice spot considering her experience in the
Champions League, despite shipping 20 goals in six games.
Lydia Williams is also in the mix for a call-up based on her body of work in Europe, but has
struggled for game time at PSG of late.
When asked about who would be her Matildas goalkeeping picks based on current form
alone, Barberi insisted she would still turn to those playing in Europe.
“My three goalkeepers that are playing in European football – that’s it,” she said.
“At the end of the day, it’s about where are they playing. Even if they’re not playing, what
kind of environment are they in? Champions League football – that’s the league I want my
international goalkeepers to be playing in.”
WESTERN SYDNEY REVIVAL IN FULL-SWING
After 689 days, the Western Sydney Wanderers have finally secured back-to-back wins in
the competition and they’ve done so in impressive fashion.
Kat Smith’s side defied the odds when they handed title favourites Melbourne City a 2-0
defeat last week, and have pulled off another unexpected result following a 2-1 victory over another top-of-the-table side in Western United.
While the visitors came close to scoring an equaliser on several occasions, the Wanderers
proved their new-found resilience and mental fortitude that was missing during their winless run that stretched to six games at the start of the new campaign.
Smith has seemingly turned the Wanderers’ fortunes around which is a real feather in her
cap considering the result also marked her first win over a Mark Torcaso side since July
2018.
Gill discussed how the upturn in form could be down to a mentality shift that Smith has instigated, in addition to her coaching demands.
“I think it’s massive. It’s pretty easy in that situation when teams are losing games,
performances aren’t there that a coach can lose a change room and lose the confidence
they have,” Gill said.
“Whatever Kat Smith has done in the last couple of weeks to get the group around and still
hold faith and hope, besides just Sarina Bolden coming in, but just the group themselves and how they rally together – she’s obviously changed something there.”
The Wanderers have been plagued by a toothless attack and the decision to release Ashlie
Crofts who had scored three of their seven goals last term left them without a recognised
centre-forward.
Despite finding some joy in pockets of space in between the lines in weeks gone by, there
was no one making runs in between opposition centre-backs to capitalise on those
opportunities.
Philippine striker Sarina Bolden was recently signed to provide a focal point and is already
proving to be a shrewd piece of business based on her starring performance on the
weekend which saw her open her goalscoring account.
Pellizzeri acknowledged Bolden’s immediate impact, while also pointing to another key change that has been a driving factor behind the Wanderers’ resurgence.
“(Sarina Bolden) is the obvious catalyst but they finally got to their best XI. The reason they
were good today was because they made one change to the team that beat Melbourne City.
“They’re not still rotating through a squad. They’ve used well over 20 players this season
already to get to this point which probably suggests that they may have been able to get
here earlier – but they’re here now.
“(The fans) want a winning team to get around and a team that excites them and you look at the reaction there at full-time and the celebration of those players – (Amy) Harrison, Lauren Keir, Bolden – it means so much to them and I think that will be reflected in the stands.
It’s not long before the Wanderers reach the halfway point of the 18-game regular season
and after silencing two giants, talk about a potential surge up the top of the table have
already begun.
“They can turn things around,” said Gill.
“It’s not a case of ‘they’ll have a couple of wins and they’ll finish the season on a high’.
“No, there’s still plenty of time for the Wanderers to come back into this season, turn things
around and climb back up to the top of the table.”
