Glory Liberty A-League skipper Natasha Rigby is confident that the women in purple have the character to bounce back from last week’s heavy defeat against league leaders Sydney FC in Sunday’s clash with Newcastle Jets at No.2 Sportsground (kick-off at 3.45pm WST).
Click HERE to view the full pre-match media conference which also featured Alex Epakis.
The disappointment of the 4-0 loss to the Sky Blues was compounded by three players and two members of staff subsequently testing positive for COVID-19 in the squad’s temporary base in North Sydney.
But Rigby is in no doubt that there is enough determination within the group to rise to this latest in a long list of challenges they have faced and secure a third win of the season at the expense of the Jets.
“Obviously it’s not like a fairytale at the moment,” she said, “but we’re happy that the players and staff that we’ve unfortunately lost aren’t too unwell.
“Our first point of concern is their well-being, so it’s good to hear that they’re not too bad.
“It’s disappointing, but the vibe is not too bad.
“We have an amazing group of players and staff and we’ve been coming together even closer and trying to support one another at this time.
“We have a very, very resilient group and we’ve been put through a lot of adversity and challenges and our ability to adapt to those has been incredible.
“So we’ve really pressed reset, acknowledged what went wrong [against Sydney FC] and definitely felt it.
“But there’s an understanding in the group that we need to move on from that and meet the next game head-on.”
In terms of early squad news, Head Coach Alex Epakis confirmed that in addition to the three players affected by COVID-19, he will also be unable to call upon the services of attacking duo Cyera Hintzen and Susan Phonsongkham, both of whom are injured.
Experienced Matildas forward Leena Khamis, however, is expected to be available after signing a short-term injury contract with the club and Rigby believes that there are other quality replacements within the group who are more than capable of covering for the absentees.
“It’s not too detrimental,” she said.
“We have amazing depth in our squad this year, so it shouldn’t affect us too badly.
“We really want to focus on attack and playing forward football; that’s been one of our aims from the start.”
Three points for the visitors on Sunday would seem them climb to third in the table, overhauling their opponents in the process and they can take heart from their last visit to the Hunter Valley which yielded a spectacular 4-2 win in January 2020.Glory have claimed nine victories from the 21 previous meetings between the two sides, with the Jets securing maximum points on six occasions.
This term, meanwhile, Newcastle have collected seven points from four games, with both of their victories coming over Wellington Phoenix.
Tara Andrews is their leading scorer with two goals.
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