Impetus’ Genevieve Henry and Ryan Miller-Woods were in both Canberra United’s and Western Sydney Wanderers’ press conferences ahead of round 19 and the makeup of round 5 (8/3/2024).
Canberra United
By Ryan Miller-Woods
The media heard from Canberra United Head Coach Njegosh Popovich and Vesna Milivojević ahead of the team’s upcoming match against Western Sydney Wanderers on Saturday.
Canberra goes into this weekend’s match off the back of a 4-2 defeat last round to Western United and need to bounce back with a result this round against the Wanderers for their finals aspirations. It goes without saying, that despite Canberra having two games in hand, the gap between themselves and sixth is currently 10 points, and they really need every possible point from their final games of the regular season to be in that top six.
When asked how the team is feeling this week, Popovich said, “feeling confident, as we always are. From our point of view, nothing changes and this weekend being no different. We’ve got Western Sydney Wanderers back-to-back which will be very interesting for us but really focused on getting the three points.”
For United, it’ll be a quick turnaround with upcoming fixtures where after this round will face Western Sydney again on Wednesday away before they then head to Gosford for their match against Central Coast Mariners next Sunday, which will test squad fitness over the next three games.
When asked whether the team are preparing mentally and physically for the match on Wednesday, Popovich said, “yeah, I think that they are without a doubt. The focus is about for the next three games very much are results-driven, everybody’s excited and really looking forward to the challenge.”
Despite the defeat last round to Western United with the performance in the first half not being what Canberra would have wanted, they did come out in the second half with more energy and overall, a much better half which saw some great goals from both Deven Jackson and Michelle Heyman which were definitely positives that came away from the loss.
When asked about how the team fought back in that second half against Western United, Popovich said, “yeah, absolutely positives. I turned to our bench after the 14-15th minute mark and you’re three nil down and to concede a goal in the first 15 seconds of the game was heartbreaking. But full credit to the girls, they rallied, they re-grouped and we came out with a game plan in the second half without a doubt. To win the second half 2-1 is sensational, so hopefully we can keep building on that.”
One player who’ll be going up her former club this round is none other than Vesna Milivojević who played for the Wanderers in the 2019-20 W-League season and will be looking to make an impact this weekend to help Canberra’s chances of making the finals come the end of the regular season.
When asked what she’s most looking forward to ahead of Saturday’s match, Milivojević said, “it’s obviously against my old club, the Wanderers. I’m honestly just looking forward to the opportunity to play them. I wouldn’t say I have any bad blood with anyone but I have a bit more of a drive when I play against the Wanderers, that’s my hometown, so I always want to play well (against them).”
When asked about the threats that Western Sydney Wanderers have in their squad, Milivojević said, “I think they have a lot of speed and like on the transition, they’ll be really good. So I think we just need to have a good, rested defence and we can sort that out.”
Last match against Western United, when both Heyman and Milivojević came onto the pitch for the second half, there was more energy having them both in the match itself and saw a much better performance from the team in that half.
When asked how to harness that second-half performance and build on that going into this weekend’s match, Milivojević said, “we need to get back to what we were doing. We need to just stick to what we know, what we’re good at (and) stick to our strengths. Every player needs to be on 100%. You can’t have a player missing (on the pitch) because that’s when the other team will exploit that. So, I think just everyone needs to turn up with that fighting attitude and that winner’s mentality.”
Western Sydney Wanderers
By Genevieve Henry
The media heard from Western Sydney Wanderers head coach Robbie Hooker and young attacker Cushla Rue ahead of the Wanderers’ big match up(s) with last-placed, yet ever-scoring Canberra United.
The A-League Women’s schedule will not only see Western Sydney travel to Canberra on Saturday, but Canberra will travel to Western Sydney next Wednesday, making it a bizarre sequence of games to prepare for. On this note, Hooker emphasised that although it is unusual, they’ve been preparing like any other games, but that “whatever happens on Saturday, we’ll have three or four days to either try to rectify what went wrong, or try to keep doing what worked well…it presents a different challenge for us.”
Rue reiterated Hooker’s points, saying, “you just have to focus on the first game, you can’t worry about next Wednesday night. Just focusing on the first three points, but hopefully we can get the six.”
Coming off of a tough loss last round which saw them lose the derby to Sydney, including a controversial red card to key player Vicky Bruce, the Wanderers will be searching for something to numb the pain against Canberra. Hooker highlighted the fact that some decisions may have swung the game against them, saying, “There were a couple of incidents in the game which probably didn’t help us: the penalty, which the referee’s coordinator has admitted wasn’t a penalty–that didn’t help, (and) the red card which wasn’t a red card which has been subsequently overturned didn’t help. So, up until that point in the game, we were competitive, we were trying to push to look for a winner. Based on those circumstances, it was one of those games that could have gone either way.”
Rue was happy with the work the Wanderers put in against Sydney, saying, “we changed formation last weekend, I think in the first half we did well, we combined as a team, and we looked to play each other’s feet a little more. We tried to make some chances in and around the box, and I think what we can work on for this weekend is creating a few more chances and finishing them off, but it was unlucky to get the loss. This week we just have to boost morale and focus on this weekend.”
Coming up against a tough Canberra attack with golden boot leader Michelle Heyman and the ever-present Vesna Milivojević, the Wanderers will hope that their defence can remain stoic. Thankfully for the team in red and black, defender Vicky Bruce’s red card has been overturned, as aforementioned, but they will be lacking one starting centre back in Alexia Apostolakis. “We’ve got a couple of players away with the (Australian National) Under-20s, so that hasn’t helped us. Lexi (Apostolakis) who is a consistent starter on the team, so that has sort of disrupted things. These are things that all teams have to adjust to and put up with, so our focus is just trying to win each game.”
Western Sydney sit in 8th, only one point out of the top six and finals qualification. Hooker commented, “we’ve been speaking about making finals all year. The hunger is still there, it’s just a matter of making sure we execute on the field. With five games left, I think if we win three of those, we’ll probably make the finals.” The Wanderer’s destiny will be in their own hands if they can get results from both matches against Canberra, a great opportunity against the bottom-placed team.
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