Melbourne City’s A-League Women team have overcome a potential COVID-19 case to smash champions Melbourne Victory 5-1, with New Zealand international Hannah Wilkinson scoring all five goals.
City assistant coach Dario Vidosic said a player, who had been in a house with seven other players, had returned two positive rapid antigen tests earlier on Sunday.
While the player went into isolation pending a PCR test, the rest of City’s squad returned negative rapid tests, with the players in that specific house recording second negative results when they arrived at AAMI Park.
The situation forced the majority of City’s players to have their halftime team talk outside by the pitch, with the select group of players in a separate change room.
“That happened this morning, where two rapid tests came back positive for one player that was in a house with about seven of the other girls,” Vidosic said
“That certainly put everything into a bit of disarray and we had a set of girls from that house in a separate change room so we couldn’t have a team talk or anything – to keep that distancing.
“It was a bit of a crazy day but I think after that you have to give the girls so much applause for that. So many distractions, so much uncertainty and even now not knowing what the next few days will hold.
“We’re hopeful, we tried to do the right thing and we’re hopeful we can be ready for next week and we don’t have to go into an isolation-type situation.
“Thankfully for now there are no other cases. The girls, they wanted to play, they didn’t want to postpone either.”
City cut Victory up at will with their speed and guile, particularly via Holly McNamara, while pouncing on the champions’ defensive errors, and leapfrogged their rivals into second behind Sydney FC.
Wilkinson scored a 26-minute hat-trick, then became only the second player to score five goals in an ALW game, after Kate Gill’s haul for Perth Glory in 2014.
“She was five-star,” Vidosic said.
“We are happy for her. It was coming.”
Wilkinson scored in the fifth minute, then capitalised on an error from Victory goalkeeper Casey Dumont to sweep home her second in the 13th.
Thirteen minutes later, Tiffany Eliadis and Dumont got in each other’s way and Wilkinson pounced to seal her hat-trick.
Wilkinson chipped Dumont for her fourth in the 56th minute, then tapped home at the back post 18 minutes later.
Victory snatched a late consolation when Alex Chidiac slipped through Maja Markovski for her first league goal in the 84th minute.
“Our performance really took me by surprise. But the commitment to the way City played and the way that they went about the game, it was a true reflection, the scoreline,” Victory coach Jeff Hopkins said.
“It was a real disappointing performance for me but maybe it’d been coming for a few weeks. We had got away with a few things.
“So it’s now time for us to be honest with ourselves.”
