This past week has been one for the history books, with matches moving venues due to extreme weather, a newly-promoted club breaking their drought against another, and another huge step towards the Women’s Australia Cup.
One normal week of NSW NPL Women’s. That’s all we ask for. Will never happen.
This season Beyond 90 will take a look at the big talking points across the league every week, all the way up to the Big Dance in September.
Stingrays by name, not by nature
Before European invasion, the Dharawal people lived as custodians of the region now known as Illawarra, conferring their accumulated knowledge of botany, astronomy, geography and – most importantly this week – meteorology from elder to child since a time before time. As the nocturnal quoll calls for his mate and lilly pillys ripen on the trees, soaking rains and cooler climes signal the arrival of Bana’murrai’yung, the ancient season between the fires and the frosts.
Despite colonisation and climate change, Bana’murrai’yung remains, an eternal autumnal cloak over Sydney and its southern surrounds, and in few places is it more noticeable than in Wollongong, where the Escarpment’s shadow shortens days even further and whose cliffs flood the city with higher altitudes’ rains. The Illawarra Stingrays once again suffered under that weight of weather, their home grounds of JJ Kelly Park and Macedonia Park in Berkeley succumbing to the elements under more than 40mm of rain across Sunday, forcing their match against Bankstown to be moved an hour’s drive north to Seymour Shaw in Sutherland.
While the Shire wasn’t safe from the wet itself, the Stingrays made the most of their opportunity on the Miranda turf, scoring an early opener through veteran Michelle Carney at close range. However, be it due to the travel, the weather, or their opponent’s persistence, Illawarra like their home grounds yielded to the pressure, conceding a last-minute set-piece where a clean sheet seemed assured.
Froth the Ravens evermore
We love a good news story, and it’s great to see another one developing north of the Uhrs Point Bridge, as newly-promoted Gladesville Ravens finally earned their first-ever top-flight victory against fellow promoted side Bulls Academy.
Four years on from their incredible League One grand final win against now-powerhouse APIA Leichhardt, the Ravens are just scratching the surface of their NSW NPL Women’s story, and Keiko Tanaka’s brilliant second-half goal will stand forever as a part thereof, the first player to score an NPL winner.
There might be plenty of the season to remain – especially with the expanded fixture list this year – but there’s no doubting Gladesville won’t be going softly into that good night any time soon. With a tight-knit group of players and a hint of quality about them, this could be a club that we’ll be seeing plenty of in years to come.
Another piece of history
With recent news of a Women’s Australia Cup being reported in the football media, New South Wales finally became the last piece in the national puzzle this week with the revelation of the Round One draw for the inaugural Sapphire Cup today.
Featuring teams from Camden and Cromer to Cringila and Castle Hill, the competition will pit the best of Football NSW’s local federations against its League One and NPL Women’s clubs, mirroring its older brother the Waratah Cup and Australia’s oldest football competition, the Dockerty Cup in Victoria.
While we’re yet to learn how players contracted to NPL Women’s clubs in the winter and A-League Women’s clubs in summer will be registered throughout the competition, this first draw is a new dawn – a fraught term – for NSW and its women’s football community, bringing together the whole federation and finally uniting local, regional and elite football in the quest for silverware.
Around The Grounds
Saturday 1 April
NWS Spirit 0 APIA Leichhardt 1 at Christie Park
Sunday 2 April
Bulls Academy 0 Gladesville Ravens 1 at Northbridge Oval
Manly Unites 2 Football NSW Institute 0 at Cromer Park
Emerging Jets 3 Sydney University 5 at Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility
Macarthur Rams 3 Blacktown Spartans 0 at Lynwood Park
Illawarra Stingrays 1 Bankstown City 1 at Seymour Shaw
Sydney Olympic vs Northern Tigers – postponed
Top Scorers
4 – Stephanie Augoustis (Sydney University), Emily Minnett (Manly United)
3 – Peta Trimis (Bulls Academy)
| M | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | ||
| 1 | Sydney Olympic | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | +5 | 9 |
| 2 | Manly United | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | +5 | 8 |
| 3 | APIA Leichhardt | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 3 | +3 | 8 |
| 4 | Northern Tigers | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 2 | +6 | 7 |
| 5 | Bankstown City | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 3 | +3 | 6 |
| 6 | NWS Spirit | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 6 |
| 7 | Sydney University | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 11 | +0 | 5 |
| 8 | Bulls Academy | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 5 | +0 | 5 |
| 9 | Gladesville Ravens | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -1 | 5 |
| 10 | Macarthur Rams | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 7 | -1 | 4 |
| 11 | Illawarra Stingrays | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | -4 | 4 |
| 12 | Football NSW Institute | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | -1 | 3 |
| 13 | Emerging Jets | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 11 | -5 | 0 |
| 14 | Blacktown Spartans | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 8 | -8 | 0 |
