Third time's the charm as Victory see off Glory

The expectation was Melbourne Victory would beat Perth. Which they did, 1-0. But after dropping results in dying embers of back-to-back home games, there was more to this win than just three points.

As Isobel Dalton swung in back-to-back corners for Perth Glory, both scrambled away, albeit not too convincingly, by Melbourne Victory, the mood at the Home of the Matildas was fraught. It was the 75th minute of the two’s A-League Women meeting, and it was the hosts holding onto a one-goal lead thanks to a 33rd-minute blast from skipper Kayla Morrison.

There’s inevitably a degree of tension that comes with defending a one-goal lead in the final stages of any game but it felt as though there was an extra level of dread associated with this one, even with the Glory reduced to ten. Because Jeff Hopkins’ side had been in a similar position in their last two games at this venue and, on both occasions, they had let the lead slip through their fingers.

First, there had been a 90th-minute equaliser to Wellington last month, giving the Kiwi side their first-ever points in Victoria. Then the side in navy blue had somehow conspired to give up two goals in the last five minutes to draw 4-4 with a Western Sydney side rooted to the foot of the table.

Especially in light of Tijan McKenna’s 60th-minute red card, Perth had no right to force their way back into this one; but neither had the Phoenix or Wanderers, and we all saw how that turned out.

20 minutes later, however, accounting for the five tortuous minutes of added time that were signalled for, Victory had taken out the three points, securing a 1-0 win and ensuring that Alex Chidiac would mark her 100th A-League Women appearances with a win. From a more mundane, ladder-focused perspective, the three points were important ones, capitalising on ladder-leading Melbourne City’s 1-1 draw with Western United the day before to close the gap on the ladder leaders to two points, with a meeting between the two on tap for the first day of February. But from a morale perspective, a mindset perspective, this very well could end up being a vital win for Hopkins’ side.

Drop a third straight game at home, against another side sitting outside the top six, who hasn’t won in their last five games or beaten you since 2022 and this inability to close out games on their home deck begins to look less misfortune and more a habit.

Home is supposed to be where the heart is, providing a place of comfort and familiarity during a long season. Have it instead turn into a place of creeping doubt and things are all of a sudden becoming a lot harder than they need to be. This counts doubly so given that Victory’s push for a premiership this season will see them play two eminently winnable games against Canberra and Newcastle – games they will be expected and probably need to win – at the venue.

But win they did, overcoming the sapping effects of a busy few weeks seeing off any demons before they turned into something that needed to be properly exorcised and setting up a scenario wherein, should they be able to see off second-bottom Sydney next Friday evening, a place at the league’s summit will be up for grabs when they face off with City. As their coach would observe, it’s the type of un-sexy win that doesn’t go down in the annals but, when you look under the hood of successful seasons, helps lay the foundations.

“Very important,” Hopkins reflected to JDL Media. “I've spoken to the players, they said they didn't feel any anxiety. They did feel fatigued, though. Maybe it should have been down to me to maybe make a couple more changes, to help with the fatigue.

"Maybe the fatigue caught up with them today because it wasn't a great performance. With the ball, we looked tired right from the start. We looked just off the pace a little bit from the start, but good teams find a way to win. And we had one moment of inspiration there from Kayla. And we were good enough to stop them from scoring.”

"You could see in maybe the last 10 minutes, we were thinking a little bit more about keeping possession, going backwards, going sideways, going into the corners -- keeping possession of the ball.

“We said it right from the start of the second half that we weren't just gonna just hang on, we wanted to go forward and we wanted to make forward runs. But our decision-making of when to go forward, when to keep possession of the ball and when to go sideways was a lot better.

“And it shows there's, there's been some learning from those last couple of games.”

If one needed an example of how Victory was being sapped by fatigue, one need only look at the performance of attacker Emily Gielnik. That’s not to say the Matilda was bad, though. Far from it; she spent most of the game floating around the periphery of being dominant. But when it came time for the attacker to let loose with that final effort that would rocket past Casey Dumont in the Glory goal, or lay that final, killer ball, it just wasn’t there on Saturday.

On another day, Victory doesn’t need to worry about seeing off the game in the final 15 minutes because Gielnik has already bagged a couple of goals to supplement Morrison’s missle, as well as set up Rachel Lowe and Nikki Flannery for a couple of others.

“You could see at times she'd beat a player, she'd get past them, and then the recovering player would get back to her -- which, in normal circumstances, wouldn't happen,” Hopkins said.

“I've talked to most of the players and they've said the fatigue was there and it was worse than last week.

“We've got, we've got a short turnaround this week, so all we've said now is that recovery is the priority from now until Friday [against Sydney].

“But I'm 100% confident that we can recover and we can be ready to go.”