By Isabelle Campbell 9/5/26
Above: Rachel Lowe. Photo: Melbourne Victory
Melbourne Victory heads into today’s second-leg semi-final against Melbourne City needing to overturn a 1-0 aggregate deficit, with midfielder Rachel Lowe outlining a focus on a more direct and purposeful approach for the return fixture.
Lowe, who was recognised with the club’s 2026 Victory Medal earlier this week, noted the group had used the short turnaround to reset and sharpen its focus after the opening-leg defeat.
“I think that’s what we focused on this week.
“They have a one nil lead, and we don’t really need to think about the way that they’re going to attack the game, because for us, we have to go and win the game, that’s just the reality.
“We just kind of tweaked a few things, and I think it’ll hopefully help us with sending numbers forward because we need to score goals at some point.”
With the tie to be decided today, Lowe pointed to a need for Victory to start on the front foot while relying on squad depth to manage the intensity across the full match.
“Our mentality going into the game is to take it to them from the start.
“We have a great bench, and we’ve got depth that we can bring on if we need in different scenarios.
“So I think from the first whistle, we’re going to be going at the game like it is our grand final, because we don’t want our season to end.
“Putting pressure on them from the start, it’s going to set us up for a good finish to the game.”
Victory comes into the match having produced a strong elimination-final win over Canberra earlier in the finals series, though Lowe acknowledged City present a very different level of challenge.
“I think our Canberra game was a really good platform for us to set for finals.
“But City are a different kettle of fish, and we know that we’ve got to be on our absolute A game to get a result.
“So I think we’ve just been focusing on that, trying to take in positives that we did with Canberra, but obviously adjust it to the quality of what City have.”
Attention turned to Victory’s ability to play with more intent in possession and take greater risks in key attacking moments following the first leg.
“They obviously are really dominant with the ball.
“And I think after the game, we just kind of came together as a group and said, ‘We need to be a lot braver in terms of going forward, and we’ve got nothing to lose now.’
“So I think just really taking the game by the scruff of the neck and to go forward and win.
“Last week, we were a little bit tentative, and gave them a bit too much respect.”
While today’s match carries the added weight of a derby semi-final, Lowe stressed the importance of keeping attention on the task of overturning the deficit.
“The City team has obviously been really successful this year.
“They’ve got the Champions League coming up. So there’s no doubt that they’re a talented team.
“But I think that it didn’t matter who the team was really, it’s a semi final, and we’re just going to try and treat it like that and not put too much emotion of a derby into it.
“But it obviously plays in the back of our minds that it is a big game for us, and we always want to play the best team, so I think if we win this, it puts us in a really good spot moving forward.”
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