2023 NSW NPL Women’s Wrap – Round 8

Hey there! You… yeah, you! Ya like goals? Because we’ve got plenty! With precisely zero scoreless draws this week and almost 20 goals across the six games, it’s been a smorgasbord of attacking football in the Harbour City. Add to that this week’s late drama and we’ve had one hell of a round of football! 

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.

This week’s special: Late equalisers

In last week’s NSW NPLW wrap we touched on how celebrating with your club’s next generation is among the greatest feelings in football. With Beyond90’s role as a bastion of positivity remaining unquestioned, we can add another to the list of Things We Love: the late equaliser. 

With two of these divine gifts bestowed upon us this week – first from Keisha Allen of Gladesville Ravens, followed by another from Jaime Beaufils of Sydney University – we have had ample opportunity to judge these bolts from the blue as they snap games back to equilibrium. There are those who might say, rightly or wrongly, that goals such as these are killers of joy, robbing the dominant side of three points and forcing fans to go away ambivalent as jellyfish in the ebbing tide. 

To those people we say hooey! – there is no possession, passing or punch-ons on the scoresheet, only the naked and brutal truth of who put the ball between the posts and under the the crossbar. Of course there’s some disappointment from the side losing its ascendancy, but weep not, comrades: you had your chance to claim all three points and, for better or worse, you couldn’t take it. Within these results there remains beauty in equity: points shared are still points gained, but there’s no escaping what could have been.

Rams on the rampage

Over their proud history, there have been few NSW NPLW clubs to have had such a cavalcade of stars as Macarthur Rams. Blessed with the rich vein of talent that is the Campbelltown-Camden-Wollondilly axis, players such as Teresa Polias, Renee Rollason, Kylie Ledbrook, Amy Harrison, and the Khamis sisters have all pulled on the famous claret-and-white of the Pride of the Southwest. 

While those stars of national leagues and Matildas caps aplenty have hogged the headlines, it’s this season’s supporting cast that has us singing from the rooftops. There’s local winger Laura Murtagh with her double this weekend and Japanese midfield maestra Miku Sunaga passing with the precision of a well-rested brain surgeon; there’s Alex Huynh, India Breier, and Chrystal Duggan; and with their colleagues at Lynwood Park, they’ve got this Rams side humming like a precision-built Italian race car.

And yes, there have been defeats along the way – losses against Northern Tigers and NWS Spirit have dampened the hype – and with this week’s 6-0 home victory coming against Emerging Jets, it’s easy to forget that there’s so much left in the tank for this team. There’s stars to return from ALW duty, home matches and away trips yet to be had, and a thousand things in between, but every player thought the league will know the challenge that awaits among the judgemental kookaburras and bitter frosts of Lynwood Park. 

Peter Moore Field? More like Peter Less Rain! 

Another week, another Sydney Olympic home game postponed because of extreme weather. While it’s hard to predict when rain will fall, how much will pool on the pitch, and how quickly that pitch will drain, we at Beyond90 sympathise with the Belmore club and their lack of availability.

Owned and operated by Canterbury-Bankstown City Council and situated on a flood plain between the Bankstown Line and the Cooks River, the younger sibling of Belmore Sports Ground has definitely lived in the shadow of its more famous neighbour. Both blessed and cursed by its proximity to history, the venue has been beset by issues of drainage for a number of years, as well as the venues lights being less than ideal for night fixtures. 

With Sydney Olympic’s men’s team serving as the main tenant of Belmore, it’s a strange phenomenon that the women’s side is still shunted next door onto what is essentially a training field. With any luck this will only be a temporary measure, and with Olympic pushing for women’s silverware in the coming months, we can’t help but be excited at the prospect of the famous old hill next door being awash with young fans watching on.

Around The Grounds
Saturday 29 April
Bulls Academy 3 Northern Tigers 1 at Northbridge Oval
NWS Spirit 1 Gladesville Ravens 1 at Christie Park

Sunday 30 April
Football NSW Institute 0 Illawarra Stingrays 1 at Valentine Sports Park
Blacktown Spartans 1 APIA Leichhardt 2 at Blacktown Football Park
Manly University 1 Sydney University 1 at Cromer Park
Macarthur Rams 6 Emerging Jets 0 at Lynwood Park
Sydney Olympic vs Bankstown City – postponed

Top Scorers
6 – Ashlie Crofts (APIA Leichhardt), Brinley Gentle (Emerging Jets), Leena Khamis (Macarthur Rams), Emily Minett (Manly United)
5 – Stephanie Augoustis (Sydney University), Isabella Coco-di Sipio (APIA Leichhardt)