Western Sydney Wanderers 1-1 Newcastle Jets
By Alyce Collett 13/2/2026
Above: The Western Sydney Wanderers and the Newcastle Jets fought it out hard tonight but ultimately could not be split. Photo: via A-Leagues
The Western Sydney Wanderers and Newcastle Jets have played out a fascinating draw to kick off this weekend’s A-League Women’s action. A very quick goal from Tahlia Younis was eventually cancelled out by Melina Ayres late in the second half.
It did not even take the Wanderers 50 seconds to get on the board, when Younis found herself in quite some space and decided to trust her long range shot abilities and scored truly from about halfway between the center line and the 18 yard box.
There was not much Newcastle keeper Georgia Ritchie could do as Younis placed the shot perfectly on the edge of the net, but the goal actually came a little bit against the run of play.
This was because it was the Jets that were making the more promising attacking plays initially after kick off, but after a good intercept from Ella Buchanan, it was eventually worked across to Younis by Yuan Cong and the goal was scored.
Both sides certainly had plenty of chances to try and get a shot away, but both sets of forwards struggled to get into positions that were dangerous enough to really challenge either of the goal keepers. The Wanderers were more willing to take shots from distance though, which is why they had five shots on the board before the Jets had their first.
The home side looked far more confident in front of goal than their visitors did, who spent more time trying to open up the angles of the Wanderers’ defence than actually getting shots away.
Younis went narrowly close to picking up a second goal with about 10 minutes to go in the first half, but ultimately only got one goal in what turned out to be an eventful first half for her as she came off late in the half with a soft tissue injury concern.
The Wanderers ultimately finished the first half with 14 shots at goal to four, despite having about 22% less of the possession. Interestingly though, both sides only had two shots on target in the first half.
Western Sydney started the second half in the same way they spent much of the first half, but slowly but surely the Jets started to figure out how to navigate the Wanderers’ defence and get their forwards into actually dangerous positions and into positions where they could start racking up the shots on goal.
They finally put it all together and scored an equalizing goal with just over 20 minutes to go when a hard working Sophie Hoban squared the ball perfectly to Ayres who was directly in front of goal and the star forward converted perfectly.
The Jets ultimately had more shots on goal in the second half than their hosts did and also had significantly higher of them be on target, but ultimately neither side could quite find a second goal for the evening and as such the match was tied.
Teams: WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS (5-4-1): Khamis, Matos, Wang, Harrison, Cerne, Buchanan, Younis, Chessari, Harada, Ng-Saad, Yuan. Substitutes: Bennett, Edwards, Hooks, Khoshaba, Rue, Zumaya.
Scorer: Younis 1’
NEWCASTLE JETS (4-2-2-2): Ritchie, Cicco, Prior, Bates, Lancaster, Dundas, Hoban, Brown, J.Allan, Ayres, Collins. Substitutes: L.Allan, Boertje, Breier, Copus-Brown, Johnson, Wilson.
Scorer: Ayres 78′
Referee: Shab Roshan
Attendance: 1,028.
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