For this week’s WA On Wednesday feature, Fremantle City’s Olivia Trueman speaks to Ben Gilby about her footballing journey, life at the club, and the state of the NPLW WA this season (7/6/23).
Above: Olivia Trueman striding forward for Fremantle City this season in the NPLW WA. Photo supplied to Impetus by: Denyse McCulloch.
After several years as part of the NTC setup in Western Australia, Olivia Trueman joined Fremantle City ahead of this season – and it’s an experience she is absolutely loving.
“I have been welcomed into a new team and am surrounded by a wonderful and genuine team of players,” Trueman told me.
Her arrival at the port city club sparked a new chapter in a footballing journey that started at the age of seven. “I started at my local club Kelmscott Roos and played in the boy’s team until I was 13 where my dad was the coach. In 2017 I trialled for the School Sports state team and successfully made the squad.
“We travelled to Adelaide for my first football state competition. In my last season playing with the boys, I made my debut for Kelmscott’s women’s side at 12 scoring twice on debut. At the end of the season, I trialled for the U14s NTC team and was successful. Faye Chambers, who is now in charge at Fremantle City, was my coach. I then continued my NTC journey through to the U15s, again with Faye as the coach. We had a very successful season and I was surrounded by amazing teammates. I finished as the golden boot winner for the league.
“I then made the big leap from U15s to trialling with the U19s where I was again successful and had the opportunity to be in a team with extremely talented players. I earnt a spot for a second year in the U19 squad with a great group of girls, here I created some amazing friendships I continue to cherish.
“It was in my second year I suffered an ankle injury where I fractured my foot and did ligament damage resulting in me being out for most of the season, I managed to make a recovery before the team went to Canberra to compete in Challenge, where we had our eyes open to the extremely talented players around the country, it was a real eye-opener of the dedication it takes to be successful in the sport. Earlier this year, I attended Fremantle City training where I was offered a first-team position with Faye Chambers as coach.”
Trueman believes her move to Freo has given her a unique opportunity to be guided by and grow her game with some of Western Australia’s most experienced campaigners. “The opportunity to be at Fremantle has me surrounded by extremely experienced players such as Tash Rigby and Kat Jukic. They continue to encourage and offer their support to me through training and games and helped greatly with my confidence.
“As a relatively young player, I believe I still have a lot of improvement to make to both my technical and physical game, although I believe my speed is one of my best skills, I’m continuing to regain confidence in taking on players with but believe I always work to give 100% in games. I also believe the team drive and expectation in training and games will force me to improve to make a name for myself.”
The calibre of players in the Fremantle team continues to inspire Trueman to become an even better player. The motivation to achieve these improvements in her game began from the commencement of pre-season training.
“I found myself looking to be the fittest and fasted I could be while being smart with monitoring my past injury, by training with my sprint coach I worked hard every week to increase my fitness and speed to bring to my game and new team. Making time for the gym also came a priority for me to increase my strength to take on the strong defenders in the league.
“Being surrounded by such quality players means I’m continuing to need to work hard on and off the pitch to raise my game to maintain my spot in the team. Pre-season with Freo was great, I was feeling fast and fit and felt the team had welcomed me with open arms.
Fremantle City’s start to the NPLW WA season was somewhat up and down, but with their A-League Women players gradually coming into the side, the team is growing week by week and are mounting a serious challenge for the top four positions. Trueman reflected on the season to date.
“Losing to Murdoch University Melville (MUM FC) in the first game of the season was a disappointing start but I felt that MUM FC had improved considerably from last year. They were very unlucky not to beat us in the night series and recent results have shown them to be a worthy top-four side.
“Our heavy defeat at Perth SC (0-6) was frustrating as we created several good chances but were unable to convert. Perth on the other hand punished us with some clinical finishing. Our results have improved steadily since the Perth defeat, and we have had fine wins against NTC and Perth. Gaining three quality players in Tash Rigby, Abbey Green, and Carys Thomas has galvanised the team and results have followed. Losing away at RedStar was a bitterly disappointing loss and we felt that we gave away three poor goals which is something that you can’t do against RedStar.”
As Freo continue to build, the youngster believes that success is potentially just around the corner.
“As a team we have a great team rapport, with everyone being extremely genuine and simply nice people it’s been very easy to create a good relationship on the pitch, I think with our full squad together with Tash Rigby and Abbey Green bringing a huge amount of quality to our games, I believe our future is bright.
“I think we understand losing is a very normal part of football and there are things that come out of losing but I believe we have a squad that has a determination to win week in and week out and we will continue to work hard to earn the results.”
Whilst Perth RedStar have recovered from dropped points at the start of the season to hold a six-point lead at the summit, the race for the top four is tighter than ever this season, with at least six teams competing for those places. Trueman sees a dramatic few months ahead.
“I think this season will be very exciting, it’s very tight at the moment with teams like MUM FC and Balcatta coming out with some impressive results. I think RedStar continue to prove they’re a quality team and with such a successful previous year, they are bound to continue their winning results, but I think with the league being so close they’ll certainly have to work hard for the three points.
“It’s a tough game every week in this league which means as a team we need to make training intense and game-like in order to continue our winning results and bring our best week in and week out.”
With Fremantle looking to continue their good run of recent form, Trueman sees a good 2023 for City.
“I think that a top-four finish is a must for this team, however, the league is very open and competitive this year and we will have to earn our place. I believe that we are capable of beating any team on our day and if we are lucky with injuries a top-two finish isn’t out of the question.”
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