FV Emerging (Image Courtesy: Gold Leaf Creative)

There is a new and different energy in Victoria this winter with what is going on in the production line of talent for women’s football.

Take one look at the table in NPL Victoria Women’s and it’s unmissable. FV Emerging (previously Senior NTC) are top. On Monday night, they kept just their fifth clean sheet in 60 games, dating back to August 2017.

Well I’ve buried the lead a bit here, they smashed previously unbeaten South Melbourne 5-0. A South side coming off a win against 2019 champions Calder United, playing Melissa Barbieri in goal and an adult core of talent including six past W-League players.

It was a stunning statement of where Football Victoria’s program is at, that they dominated possession and territory, did not concede a shot on target, and after teasing for the first 30 minutes with a number of near misses and good saves from Barbieri, unleashed a cutting edge. And again, against a top team in South Melbourne. South Melbourne who obliterated pre-season top four fancy Bulleen Lions 7-1 in their season opener just two weeks earlier.

Unlike past incarnations of NTC, where the star player and centrepiece may have been Beattie Goad in 2014 or Kyra Cooney-Cross in 2017, this year’s team looks very balanced without a talent that necessarily stands out above the others.

Raising the age limit from 18 to 21 can be sighted as an obvious reason for the lift in performance, allowing FV Emerging to either hold on to players who would otherwise have graduated, or even bring back graduates who had previously departed like Melbourne City duo 21-year-old Sarah Cain and 19-year-old Lia Muldeary.

But to say retaining a few older players alone is the reason for the up-turn in form would be to sell short the contributions of 17-year-old Jess Young and 15-year-olds Alana Murphy and Caitlin Karic, all of whom have scored goals and been leading lights through the first three rounds of the season.

In June 2017, South Melbourne blew NTC off the park 9-2. In the squad both on that day and on Monday, were centre back pair Leia Varley and Claudia Mihocic, midfielder Bella Sewards, forward Holly Furphy and winger Francesca Iermano. Under the old age limit, all bar Mihocic would have had to graduate and play elsewhere in the NPLW this season. There is something to be said for the cohesion and understanding of this class of players staying together for the additional years now that the age limit has been lifted.

Coach Helen Winterburn and her staff have instilled a proactive mindset in the players, with a high volume of positive passes and seemingly relentless energy and aggression. It is not too early to earmark the English Winterburn, a UEFA A-License holder, as one to watch for the future off the field as well.

In January I bemoaned that the W-League, Melbourne City in particular, had snubbed home-grown Victorian players in favour of extensive targeted recruiting from interstate. That since Steph Catley and Ash Brown in 2012, Victoria had not had a single outfielder make a Matildas debut. April’s friendlies have since changed that with Germany-based Beattie Goad breaking the drought at almost nine years.

Perhaps by accident more than design, the W-League recruiting decisions of summer has done Victoria a favour.

It has shown the state’s best young prospects that getting a game in the national league requires more proof of ability than call-ups to a junior national team. Making a weekly statement for all to watch on YouTube is a great start.

For now, and one would think until at least 2023, the days of a 15-year-old like Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord, Emily Van Egmond or in more recent times Mary Fowler being hot-shotted into the senior national team are over.

Five years ago, before NPL games being streamed en-masse, I absolutely would have emailed some of the clips from Monday to national team coaches and said “hey <names redacted>, have you seen THIS!”.

Now, I know Young Matildas coach Leah Blayney and Junior Matildas coach Rae Dower are watching. Next season may be months away, but one would hope W-League coaches are watching too.

This FV Emerging class can do more than just contend to win the NPLW Victoria title.

They can shift the mindset about how the rest of the country thinks about Victorian players.

There have definitely been some false dawns with classes of Junior or Young Matildas from the state in years gone by, and I have been as guilty as anyone of talking them up – look no further than the six Victorian Young Matildas of 2016.

There is a cultural cringe around Victorian players. They are almost never [1] head-hunted in the W-League to play in other states, while by contrast Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City habitually absorb players from interstate players to fill their ranks.

This season FV Emerging can change that. Because instead of an outsider looking at the team and immediately seeing Beattie Goad or Kyra Cooney-Cross as the standout among discardable peers, it is impossible now to pin the colours to just one player. So many of them are complementary to each other’s games, and any coach or recruiting manager that casts their eye across the squad is going to have to think far more deeply about how they will fit the movement of a Jess Young, passing of an Alana Murphy or shooting of a Caitlin Karic into their side.

South Melbourne will adjust, Calder United did beat FV Emerging in the knock-out cup and Bulleen Lions since losing 3-1 to FV Emerging have welcomed back W-League players including Kayla Morrison and Gabby Garton. There’s a good chance the kids will end up in a battle for fourth rather than a battle for the title through a 27-game marathon.

 

But for now, let’s get excited about what’s happening in Victoria because we’ve never seen anything like this before, or had the opportunity to watch it week to week like we currently can. And with that said, if anyone has Tony G’s email address, I’d love to send him the link.

[1] Little more than a handful of Victorian outfield players have played for an interstate team, Kyra Cooney-Cross (Western Sydney), Annabel Martin (Newcastle) and Jacynta Galabadaarachchi (Perth), and five players who initiated their own moves for an opportunity –  Alex Gummer, Julia Sardo, Rita Mankowska, Rachel Alonso and Alex Natoli. Plus two goalkeepers who are forced to move for opportunity far more frequently, Melissa Barbieri at Newcastle and Melissa Maizels at Perth and Canberra.

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