After four rounds of the A-League Women you start to get a picture of how the season is going to pan out. Teams start to settle. Playing styles emerge and systems are tweaked. Match fitness builds and players bond. After the Unite round Canberra United lie 4^th with 7 points from a possible 12. Brisbane Roar, who Canberra defeated in round 1, are top of the league having won all their matches after their visit to Canberra.

Coach Antoni Jagarinec must be happy with that. Context is everything in understanding what a great start to the 2024-25 season this is. Remember, Canberra did not have a coach, a team, or any certainty to the future only a short while ago. One of the challenges for Canberra, and most A-League teams to be fair, over the last few years, has been building any form of team continuity. Players have come and gone in large numbers each season. Coaches haven’t stuck around either.  Only one coach in Canberra’s history has lasted more than two seasons – Heather Garriock from October 2017 to February 2020. The squad Jagarinec has put together has the youngest average age in the competition, and that’s with 36-year-old Michelle Heyman in the line-up.  So, given the context of where Canberra is at, this early season form is quite remarkable.

This week’s game against Perth Glory was held in Sydney. This happened because this was the Unite Round, this rather odd weekend where all A-League Women and A-League Men play in one city – Sydney. This came about only because the A-League bosses need to get out of their deal with Destination NSW to stage its Grand Finals in Sydney for three seasons. They had contractual obligations which, thankfully, they have now fulfilled. From a A-League Women footballing perspective this administrative bungle doesn’t work. It means teams like Canberra United and Perth Glory must play at a neutral venue, at an earlier time (therefore hotter), and in front of sparse crowds. But it is what it is, and Canberra came into this game full of early season optimism.

How the team lined up

In the early exchanges Canberra pressed Perth hard and, in the 5th minute, the ball broke to Stanic-Floody who, not for the first time this season, lobbed the ball invitingly over the defence for Heyman running in on goal. For once, Heyman’s touch let her down a little and Grace Johnson cleared as a last line of defence. A couple of minutes later Taylor-Young showed great vision and technique with a cross field past to Christopherson who laid a neat ball off for Markovski. Markovski managed to pull the ball back across goal only for Perth to clear for a corner. A promising start. Taylor-Young’s switch of play was a small sign of how she is developing as a footballer. You don’t see a lot of these cross field passes in the A-League. When you do they tend to come from experienced players, such as Yallop. The fact that Taylor-Young saw the pass and executed so well is a very positive sign. I sat on my couch (because I couldn’t ‘Unite’ for this fixture) and applauded! Anyone else think of a young Ellie Carpenter in Canberra days? Just saying!

Perth started to come more into the game on the back of Grace Johnson and Isobel Dalton. Canberra didn’t help their cause when gifting the ball near their own penalty area only to be rescued by Anton standing firm to block a shot. There’s only one Sally James dropped the resultant corner near her own goal line and it was scrambled legs time. Canberra managed to eventually clear. 

Canberra then instigated their own scrambled legs action from a corner, but McKenzie headed over.  Mid way through the first half Michelle Heyman went innocuously down clutching her ankle defending a free kick. You could hear the collective intake of breath from the handful of Canberra supporters in the stand. After some strapping and magic spray (there’s always magic spray), she came back on and completed the match – resume breathing! 

With Heyman still off the pitch Perth saw an opportunity. They spread the ball out to the right-hand side to Sarah O’Donaghue, she turned neatly, nutmegged McKenzie and shot at goal. The ball deflected off Anton, then deflected off the outreached foot of there’s only one Sally James and onto the post. Anton managed to clear.  The rest of the half developed into a pattern that continued for the rest of the match. That is, a distinct lack of pattern. It was stop-start as players went down, the referee’s whistle working overtime. Canberra did manage to fashion a nice move down the right-hand side which ended in Markovski drilling the ball across goal which neither Heyman nor Skelly could get a foot to.

Just before half time Perth Glory took the lead. Canberra coughed up the ball in a dangerous position and the ball was passed back to Dalton just inside the box. Her shot was deflected, again off Anton, but landed in the corner of there’s only one Sally James’s net.  O’Donaghue had time to impress again with a couple of Ronaldo step overs before unleashing a shot that hit the post. Canberra would have been pleased to get through the 7 minutes of stoppage time to re-set.

Patternless play time

For the second half Aideen Keane came on for Skelly. Probably a planned move. The patternless pattern at the end of the first half continued. Keane almost squeezed a beautiful pass through to Heyman but was thwarted by captain Zogg (which I’m sure was a Star Trak character at some point), who subsequently had to go off having tweaked something in blocking the pass. On the 65^th minute Perth should have doubled their lead. Perth shuffled the ball down the right-hand side, the cross went through two sets of legs, and it was a toss-up between McKenna and Sunaga as to who would put the ball in the back of the net. They couldn’t come to an agreement and the chance fizzled away. 

Then on the 68^th minute for once the referee decided not to blow the whistle as a player went down, Canberra shifted the ball nicely through Markovski and Heyman which released Stanic-Floody about 25 metres out. As she did against Brisbane in round 1 Stanic-Floody showed great technique and a willingness to have a pop from distance. The ball flew into the net past Dewey and Canberra had equalised. Humbly, she gave it the thumbs up. So did we. 

As a reward for her excellence Jagarinec decided to give Stanic-Floody a rest and Dos Santos came on. It was a hot day and Stanic-Floody had got through a lot of work. It was fresh legs time. Peters, the Glory coach, was a bit miffed that play hadn’t stopped in the lead up to the goal. Maybe the pea had worn out or maybe it was that referees only must stop play for head knocks and the player forgot to rub her head!  Who knows, it was 1-1. 

Bertolissio came on for Christopherson and Murray came on for Robers to add a bit more oomph to proceedings for the last 15 minutes. Keane had a chance from a Dos Santos cross but her header went over. Canberra started to press with their fresh legs. You had the feeling that with 5 minutes left of normal time plus about three days of stoppage time Canberra could snatch a winner. Dos Santos was involved again in an exchange with Heyman to put Markovski through on goal, but Dewey was onto it. Keane set up Markovski but the shot was blocked. It was one-way traffic at the end of the game. 

In the end the game finished 1-1. It was a game of two halves. Perth had the better of the first half, Canberra had the better of the second half, so a 1-1 result is fair enough. As usual, Canberra had less possession (46% to 54%), fewer shots (7 to 14) and less tackles won (12 to 23). But, this Canberra United side is very resilient and can string it together beautifully at times. This stop-start game didn’t suit them, and they’ll be times when more flowing games go their way in spectacular fashion.  Expect plenty of excitement in the weeks ahead.

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