After bumpy finals build, United not retreating but advancing in a different direction
A wave of injuries and stuttering run into finals have put Western United up against it ahead of their A-League Women elimination final on Saturday. Turns out, though, that's kind of how they like it.
Western United will enter their A-League Women elimination final winless in their last four games. They will take the field without the likes of Hannah Keane or Adriana Taranto and, very likely, Chloe Logarzo. Their opponents, the Newcastle Jets, beat them 3-1 on the same Ironbark Fields surface field they will face off on just over a month ago. Jet talisman Sarina Bolden has been one of the most lethal players in the league this season and, on her day, Melina Ayres is as well. Taken together, they’re a series of circumstances that would indicate that United will be up against it on Saturday evening, events that cast a shadow over their hopes of going one better than their grand final defeat from a season ago.
But as it turns out, United players love to play in the shade.
Coming into the A-League Women as Melbourne’s third team, built largely from a core of players drawn from Calder United’s NPLW program, by a coach that was making that same leap in Mark Torcaso, there’s always been somewhat of a sense of defiance about this team, of a desire to prove their worth through success.
A large number of the players that came into their squad in year one were only readily available because they had largely been considered surplus to requirements by Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City or never brought in to begin with; the Taranto twins, Stacey Papadopoulos and Alana Cerne, for example. Keane, who went on to win the Golden Boot in her first year in the Australian top flight, had spent a previous stint in Australia at NPLW side Alamein FC when she was still relatively fresh out of San Diego State, only to head back overseas for another six years before finally getting a shot. Logarzo, despite being an incredibly talented and well credentialled Matilda was rather perfunctorily waived by Kansas City Current last year, freeing her up to sign permanently with Western United.
“There's a definite hunger, a definite chip-on-the-shoulder kind of thing,” attacker Catherine Zimmerman told JDL Media. “Some of the girls have played for the other Melbourne teams before or been in training squads or close to making this squad. It just gave them that little extra edge to prove that they can and should be playing in the league. You felt that last year too. It's been a consistent thing. So I think that is sort of what's a bit special about the group.”
Thus while it’s obvious that Kat Smith’s side would rather have Logarzo, Keane, and Adriana Taranto all out there with them on Saturday – the trio of United’s three leading goalscorers this season, increasing the weight on the shoulders of players like Zimmerman – their absence and the resulting narratives at play do somewhat feed into the mythology that has been built around this side, mostly externally but also internally too, since their entry into the competition.
In seven games against Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City in their existence, they’ve never lost. They’ve won six of those fixtures. They like proving people wrong.
“A lot of us have been in the City system, in the Victory system and never really got that chance,” Melissa Taranto told JDL Media, reflecting on the proverbial chip on her side’s shoulder. “Having an expansion team, that's why it's so important.
“But then also a coach like Mark [Torcaso] that believed in us from day dot. That said, we're going to put this team together -- some of us had never played in the A-League before. Some of us were passed over by other teams -- to come in and believe in us.
“We've got 23 players in his team and I think it's [about] the belief of the players that need to come in [for Logarzo, Keane, and twin sister Adriana]. You're not just there as a backup. You've got to stay ready. And all the extras that they do, the extras that we do as a team, it's for these moments when we need you now.
“Now we're saying other people need to come in and kind of take that pressure now. It's the belief in our whole squad to come in and do the job. Just come in and do your job and we'll get it over the line.”
Arriving at United during the offseason with big shoes to fill after the departure of Sydney Cummings, Grace Maher has excelled in her first season in green and black, anchoring the defence alongside Cerne while leading the team in tackles and clearances and serving as an important fulcrum for her side's efforts to build out from the back. Brought in by Torcaso to give the side greater ability to function in possession, she’s also got three assists.
“It's not a coincidence that this club got to a grand final in its first season and we're back again in that position to earn that right,” she said. “So many of the players here have had to fight for their opportunity in the A-League. And so they've built up over the years this ability to try to prove themselves consistently when others may have been able to just get handed a contract. So there's a real fight and heart.
“That's also a lot of our identity as the club out in the west of Melbourne. That's a great example of why this club is suited to finals football. Not to neglect that other clubs have their own sort of fight in them. But at the end of the day, for Western, we know that if you want to take the fight to us, we're not backing down and we'll play until that 120-minute plus, to make sure that everyone can see that we have given it our all.”
Indeed, talk to other figures around the A-League Women and while feedback on other matters may vary, it will be almost universal that United are a team that do the dirty work, the ugly, hard stuff that sets the table for everything else, pretty well. Victory boss Jeff Hopkins, in the build-up to his side’s 4-1 loss to United at the Home of the Matildas, remarked – in a positive manner – about how they seemed to revel in it.
Maher knows how valuable this can be. Playing as a midfielder, she started in Canberra United’s 3-1 win over Perth Glory in the 2014 W-League grand final as a 15-year-old before going on to win a premiership in the capital in 2016/17 and also feature in finals football with Victory.
“The one thing that I always come back to -- since winning that championship with Canberra United, I've had too many semi-final defeats to want to bring up -- [is that] one of the biggest things for me is it's a fight,” she said. “It is a fight and sometimes it's not pretty.
“Sometimes you have to put your pride aside. You know that you want to play this beautiful football, you want to follow your game plan but at the end of the day, you have to earn the right to play. Making sure that we are fully focused on doing our individual roles, [gaining] momentum for the team.
“And momentum in finals is everything. We've seen that in the past with the premiership not necessarily translating to a championship. We're fully aware that finals football is a different breed and we are just making sure that everyone is up for that fight and focused on the goal and that's one game at a time.”