Melbourne Victory striker Holly Furphy has been backed in to replicate Brisbane Roar star Laini Freier’s rapid surge from Ninja A-League debutant to the CommBank Matildas after a brilliant start to her domestic career.
Furphy, 21, joined Victory on an injury-replacement contract in January and has impressed through her first six games in navy blue and white.
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Furphy scored on debut on January 24 and has now found the back of the net in back-to-back games, taking her tally to three goals in just six Ninja A-League appearances.
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Earlier this season, the emergence of Brisbane Roar debutant Laini Freier became one of the talking points of the season; after a goalless Ninja A-League debut, Freier scored back-to-back hat-tricks for the Roar, becoming the first player to ever achieve that feat.
Freier debuted for Brisbane in mid-December, 2024 and, thanks to her blistering form for Brisbane, earned a Matildas call-up less than two months later. On February 24, Frier made her senior debut for the Matildas against the United States.
On this week’s episode of Dub Zone, A-Leagues commentator Teo Pellizzeri and Sydney FC legend Teresa Polias questioned whether Furphy could follow Freier’s trajectory from a Ninja A-League newcomer to international debutant – a question to which there could only be one answer in this current transitional phase of the international team: why not?
“Can I say the M-word?” Pellizzeri asked.
“I mean, we said it super early about Laini Freier. Can I say the M-word here about Holly Furphy?”
“I mean, if we still have the interim coach in Tom Sermanni for the Korea series (in early April)… we can’t forget, Remy Siemsen has started scoring goals again over in Sweden, their season is back on, and she missed out on the SheBelieves cup, so I think she should be back.
“But in terms of what’s coming out of the Ninja A-League, I think Holly Furphy has got to be in the mix in the conversation.”
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Part of a special Emerging Matildas squad in 2021 that featured the likes of Alana Murphy, Caitlin Karic, Naomi Chidia and Claudia Mihocic, Furphy moved to the United States to play football and study at Santa Clara University.
Capped by the Young Matildas, Furphy suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury while playing abroad, ruling her out of contention for a spot in the Young Matildas’ Under-20 World Cup squad in 2022.
But the signs she’s displaying for Victory in 2024-25 have left both Pellizzeri and Polias excited for Furphy’s future in the Ninja A-League, and a potential future in green and gold.
“Holly Furphy’s weakness before going away to college, was her shooting,” Pellizzeri said. “It’s amazing. She has come back, she has developed it so much overseas to score a goal like that.”
“She’s definitely persistent,” Polias replied, “and doesn’t give up her balance. He’s extraordinary. Her strike rate’s fantastic.”
Pellizzeri added: “This is a player who suffered an ACL away at college. So she also lost a year. She got a Young Matildas cap, but didn’t make the Under-20 World Cup the year that the young Matildas went away to Costa Rica. In that age group. We need strikers. We need forwards.
“There’s going to be a gap of players that age, unless someone emerges, and I think this is the someone that is emerging.”
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