Ben Gilby continues his series profiling our Ninja A-League Women’s squad with a feature on hugely-gifted, Western Australian midfielder Georgia Cassidy.
Georgia Cassidy is a homegrown talent whose star continues to burn brighter and brighter.
Now in her third ALW season, the 20-year-old has overcome several injury issues to provide a major boost for the club as its battle to secure a first Finals appearance since 2018/19 reaches a crescendo.
This campaign has been a challenging one for the midfielder as her pre-season was majorly impacted by an injury she sustained towards the end of an NPLW WA season in which her club, Perth Azzurri, won the Championship.
After battling her way back from that injury, Cassidy was sidelined again midway through the season, leaving her understandably frustrated.
“I want to be consistent,” she said.
” I’ve been injured for half the season, so I want to try my best now and stand out.
“Looking ahead, right now, due to injuries, I don’t think I’ll play NPL [after the ALW season finishes].
“It impacted my pre-season for A-League, but if I do play NPL, it might be over East.”
As well as picking up NPLW WA silverware during the ALW off-season, Cassidy was part of the Australia U23 side that won the ASEAN Cup competition in Vietnam.
During the tournament, the rest of the country was made aware of what those of us in Western Australia have known for years; that she is a player of outstanding ability and skill who can mix it with the very best.
Unsurprisingly, Glory’s creative heartbeat thoroughly enjoyed the tournament experience both on and off the field.
“The toughest moments were just to gel with a new bunch of girls, but in the end that came easy,” she said.
“The best moments were off the pitch – the vibe!
“The team and coach were awesome and it was so positive.
“I learned more to go forward as a ‘6’, not just to go back.
“I needed to face forward and it gave me that confidence to come back into the A-League and do that there too.”
Matildas U23 Head Coach Joe Palatsides’ encouragement of Cassidy to push forward more in her role influenced her aims for this A-League Women season and beyond.
“I want to get higher up the field,” she said.
“I’m normally pretty comfortable staying back and scooping the ball up, so I want to get higher up and get some goals.”
The Perth local has been part of a squad that had to overcome a challenging early-season fixture schedule and some mixed results, before an extremely successful late summer run of form put them on course to end their long Finals drought.
And Cassidy feels that the group showed great resilience to keep their bid for the top six alive.
“We’ve had a lot of chances to make excuses across the whole season,” she said, “but we’ve dug ourselves out of some places and we’ve come off positive considering it’s been messy at times this season and it’s now going well.
“I think we have a very strong midfield and I’m very comfortable playing with them.
“(Izzy) Dalton, Emma (Tovar), Charli (Wainwright), Clancy (Westaway); I think Clancy and Charli bring that fight.
“They are hungry players.
“Playing around Dalton and Emma is calm and they string the passes together which makes it look easy.
“We just need to take our chances consistently.
“Sometimes we can have a lot of chances and not take them, with the opposition team taking one chance and winning the game.
“You have to take your chances.”
A Perth Glory midfield with Georgia Cassidy injury-free and pushing forward more regularly will only increase the team’s chances of finishing in the top six.
The rest of the competition are on notice.
With thanks to Ella McShane.
#ONEGlory
