It was a marked improvement but Melbourne Victory will be hoping to sort out their finishing after dominating Newcastle Jets in their 2-1 triumph at Lakeside Stadium on Thursday night.
The home side registered a staggering 21 shots with only 10 testing Britt Eckerstrom in goal for the Jets.
Victory created a glut of chances in the second half but failed to find the elusive third goal.
After riding a wave of momentum to take a two goal lead courtesy of a Melina Ayres screamer and a cool finish from Natasha Dowie inside the first 12 minutes, Victory struggled to deliver the killer blow as the Jets piled forward in search of an equaliser late on.
Despite making the closing moments a little more tense than they needed to be, it was still an improvement on last week.
Grace Maher's through ball ???.@tatsdowie's finish ???.
? @FOXFOOTBALL pic.twitter.com/Sr39PXmvTb
— Westfield W-League (@WLeague) November 1, 2018
Victory produced the same amount of shots (21) against Adelaide United in Round 1 but failed to put any of them away in the 0-0 stalemate.
Speaking post-match Melbourne coach Jeff Hopkins cited their improved accuracy when getting the ball forward but bemoaned the lack of a killer blow.
“Really happy [with the result], two cracking goals that we scored,” he said.
“Disappointed that we didn’t finish the game off, we had a lot of chances.
“We’ve done a lot of work on our build up and we’ve focused on getting the ball forward.”
The hosts were indeed impressive in moving the ball forward, ending the game with a 66.1% passing accuracy inside their opponent’s half and managing to fire 13 shots from within the Jets’ penalty area.
Grace Maher and Christine Nairn were both industrious in midfield, producing various through balls that caused the Jets defence no end of problems.
Victory will be hoping to improve further as they look ahead to a massive Melbourne Derby in Round 3 of the Westfield W-League.
