Saturday, October 3, 2009

The five top moments from W-League season one

So this afternoon the second season of the Westfield W-League will kick off, the same eight clubs, but new players and coaches everywhere. But shall we just take a minute to think about the first season? Here girlswithgame takes a look at its top five moments from season 2008.

5. Canberra United's late rush to draw with Perth Glory in Round 6. With their season heading downhill United started terribly in their away match to Perth Glory and were chasing a 2-0 lead for almost all of the game. Almost all of it that is because two goals in the final five minutes, one to Caitlin Munoz who had just come off the bench in her comeback from injury, and the other to Ashleigh Sykes ensured that United came away with a point from Perth and kept their season alive.

4. The grand final, Queensland Roar bt Canberra United 2-0. Yes, I'm only putting it four on my list because when it came to the actual game, well it was over in the first 25minutes thanks to Queensland's early domination. But I think it deserves to be here, because it was the grand final and also because of Casey Dumont's efforts to stay on the pitch. In the first half, Dumont was caught up in a heavy collison and apparently almost vomited on the field. She was down and out for five minutes, but got up again and kept a clean sheet for the rest of the game.


3. Katie Gill's two goals in Round 1 v Canberra United. All week the Jets weren't sure if Gill, one of the Matildas premier strikers, would get back in from her committments in Sweden to play in the Round 1 fixture against Canberra United. Bad luck for Canberra, she got off a plane about an hour beforehand. She had only met some of her team-mates in the rooms before, but that didn't stop her. Sasha McDonnell scored first for Canberra, but Gill's first cancelled it out before her second handed the Jets a win.

2. Casey Dumont's penalty against Sydney FC in their semi-final. A crazily close game played out in heat in Sydney, scores were still tied at the end of extra-time. Cue panic in the Queensland camp as a few of the Roar's usual penalty takers got too nervous. So as Jeff Hopkins asked around his group to who wanted to take the first one, 16-year-old Casey Dumont put her hand up. Yep, the goalkeeper. So she stepped up, hardly took any run-up at all and kind of stabbed it into the top right corner. It was a brilliant penalty. She then calmly walked into the goal and saved the next one from Sydney FC. Queensland ended up squeezing through on penalties to make the inuagural grand final.

1. Amy Chapman's 'scross' to beat Melbourne Victory in Round 9. After Canberra had led for most of the game in Canberra, the final 15 minutes opened up to one of the craziest finishes I've ever witnessed in a game. Melbourne equalised, before Canberra went ahead again, but what's that? Melbourne equalled the scores at 2-2 again with about 10minutes to go. Then as a final role of the dice, up stepped Chapman. One of Canberra's most consistent and creative players all year, she hadn't actually scored before that game. But that all changed when she made a run down the right wing and put in what can only be called a 'scross', it was definitely supposed to be cross but was kind of a half shot as well. From about 25m out on the right side of the box, her shot curved across the goal and despite Melissa Barbieri got a hand to it, she couldn't stop it falling into goal. That happened in the 93rd minute. Seconds later game over and Chapman had secured United's finals appearance.

So do you agree? Have any other moments? Please comment away! And tune int ABC TV at 3pm today to watch the grand final rematch.


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