Perth Glory Women have assured they will host a home Semi-Final in the Westfield W-League Finals series after a 4-2 win against Newcastle Jets at the Ashfield Sports Club.
A first half brace from Sam Kerr, and another to Caitlin Foord, cancelled out Jets skipper Emily van Egmond’s early strike.
Substitute Elisa D’Ovidio added a fourth in the second half, while the Jets scored a late consolation goal through Tara Andrews.
Despite the win, and earning a home semi-final, Glory Coach Jamie Harnwell knows his teams will have to play better if it wabts to go any further in the competition.
“It wasn’t our best performance of the season, which is disappointing, but a win is good for us, and to earn the home semi-final, but we can’t keep playing like that or we last very long,” he said.
“The two goals we conceded were sloppy, although I thought we kept them at arm’s length for large periods of the game, but the last ten minutes we dropped our bundle a bit and we struggled to keep the ball. But we’ve had a good defence all season, but today we had a few players have an off day.” Harnwell added.
Sam Kerr played for an hour before being substituted and was just happy to get the three points.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of games today, but sometimes you have to win ugly and we did that today,” she said.
“It was a class strike from Emily (Van Edmond) early but we know once we scored one, we would go on with it.
“It was good to get an hour, after struggling with a hamstring in recent weeks, and hopefully I’ll be able to play 90 next week.”
The visitors made a perfect start and were ahead after only seven minutes. Van Egmond saw Glory keeper Mackenzie Arnold off her line and her sublime chip gave the visitors the early lead. Van Egmond was running the show and five minutes later the Matilda midfielder’s lob was tipped over the top by Arnold at full stretch.
The Glory settled and on 21 minutes levelled after a ball into the box by Sarah Carroll found Kerr, who challenged Jets keeper Claire Coelho, the keepers punch only went as far as Foord who fired home from 20-yards.
The goal lifted the league leaders and three minutes later they hit the front. The pacey Kerr raced clear, she held off Cassidy Davies and finished clinically past Coelho.
The Jets keeper was then felled after a clash with Kate Gill but after a lengthy break, she continued. However on the stroke of half time the Glory added a third. The Jets hadn’t learnt their lesson and another long ball sent Kerr racing clear, and she lobbed the on-coming Coelho to give the home side a 3-1 lead at the break.
After the break the Jets took the game to the lead leaders and Alanna Kennedy and Shelina Zadorsky were working overtime, but the Jets couldn’t find a way through. The Glory showed them how to do it and added a fourth on 84 minutes with substitute D’Olvido pouncing on a mistake from Jets defender Sophie Nenadovic to fire home.
To the Jets credit they continued to press and were rewarded with a consolation goal from Andrews in the final minutes. Victoria Huster sending the lively striker clear, and with the Glory defenders looking for the offside flag, that never came, Andrews lobbed Arnold.
Match Details
Perth Glory 4 (Foord 21’, Kerr 24’, 45+4’, D’Ovidio 84’)
Newcastle Jets 2 (Van Egmond 7’, Andrews 89’)
Referee: Katie Patterson
Assistants: Josh Nixon and Tom Dowle
Fourth Official: Matthew Southern
Perth Glory: GK Mackenzie ARNOLD, 2 Sarah CARROLL, 4 Bronwyn STUDMAN (3 Carys HAWKINS 65’), 5. Shannon MAY, 6 Alanna KENNEDY, 9 Caitlin FOORD, 12 Kate GILL, 14 Collette MCCALLUM (c), 15 Shelina ZADORSKY, 17 Marianna TABAIN (13 Elisa D’OVIDIO 75’), 20 Samantha KERR (7 Gabrielle MARZANO 64’)
Subs not used: RGK Kathleen WAYCOTT
Yellow Cards: Carroll 23’, Kennedy 57’
Newcastle Jets: GK Claire COELHO, 2 Georgia YEOMAN-DOYLE (12 Sophie NENADOVIC 34’), 3 Hayley CRAWFORD, 5 Katherine REYNOLDS, 6 Angela SALEM, 7 Victoria HUSTER, 8 Amber NEILSON (15 Elizabeth COPUS-BROWN 72’), 9 Tara ANDREWS, 10 Emily VAN EGMOND, 11 Rhali DOBSON (17 Grace MACINTYRE 62’), 16 Cassidy DAVIS,
Subs not used: RGK Renee RUDDER
Yellow Cards: Crawford 75’
NEXT MATCH DETAILS
Perth Glory Women v Western Sydney Wanderers
Saturday, November 15. 3pm kick-off.
Ashfield Sports Club, corner Guildford and Colstoun Rd
