Victory seeking seperation as they prepare for Jets, Ayres showdown
As his Melbourne Victory prepare to face down a former talisman now leading Newcastle's line, Jeff Hopkins feels consistency will prove defining in an A-League Women being defined by its parity.
Amid a tight start to the A-League Women season in which just four points separate first from sixth and lesser-heralded sides are jostling for position with more familiar heavyweights, Melbourne Victory boss Jeff Hopkins is hoping that his unit will be the first to find the consistency needed to create clear separation.
Sitting second on the table following a 1-0 triumph over Adelaide last week, Victory have made the trek north to face the third-placed Newcastle Jets on Friday evening, looking to break a run of form that has seen them alternate wins with defeats across their last five weeks and frustrated their efforts to build the same head of steam they developed across a 15-game unbeaten run to end 2024-25.
While it carries a necessary disclaimer surrounding the uneven number of games that each team has played – top-two sides Canberra and Victory have played seven times, while seventh-placed Melbourne City, fresh off another postponement, have only played four – just one side that reached last year’s semifinals, Victory, sits inside the top four heading into this weekend.
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Perched atop the table after ending last season fifth, Canberra are coming off a stretch in which they beat Victory, Sydney, and Melbourne City in back-to-back-to-back games – the first time in their history they’ve ever downed all three in the same season. After their 3-0 win over Brisbane last week, meanwhile, the Jets, who finished second-bottom a year ago, have moved into third, with two games in hand over the sides above them.
But all three members of the league’s top three have had stumblestoo. Beyond their aforementioned up-and-down form, Victory’s three losses this season are already more than their total from the last campaign. Canberra’s ledger, meanwhile, is blotted by a defeat to second-bottom Adelaide, while Newcastle were smashed 4-1 by the fourth-placed Central Coast in the first F3 Derby of the season a fortnight ago.
“Looking at the league, I think you can see that there’s not a huge amount of difference between the top and the bottom sides,” said Hopkins. “We think we’ve got as good a side, if not better, in some respects, than last season. Yet we’ve really struggled to find consistency this season.
“If you look at every side, every side has a core of players that can hurt you and can make things really difficult for you. At the moment, no one’s actually jumped out of the pack and become really consistent. The teams that can do that and add some consistency to the up-and-down, wavy form are going to be the ones that can jump ahead.
“We’re hoping that’s going to be us. But every team that we’ve played this year, from Brisbane Roar to the Jets this weekend, have got three or four players in their side, at least, that can turn a game and can really hurt you. If you don’t manage those players well, then you’re going to lose games.”
For Victory, one of the key players they’ll need to manage this Friday is a very familiar one: Jets striker and former Victory talisman, Melina Ayres.
Playing her second season in the Hunter after taking a year off from football in 2024-25, Ayres netted her second goal of the season in her side’s win over the Roar last week; controlling the ball and using a backheel to turn her marker with a level of ease that belied the sheer talent required to pull off such a move, before calmly finishing into the bottom corner.
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Still just 26, the marksman spent several memorable years at AAMI Park and in the NPLW Victoria (as well as a short stint in Iceland) before making the move to New South Wales. This included a 2022-2023 campaign in which she netted nine times and, in one of the competition’s greatest ever games, almost single-handedly dragged Victory to a penalty shootout they would, inspired by Casey Dumont, go on to win against City in an elimination final.
“I don’t know if it’s like saying, ‘Oh, we’re just gonna stop her every single time,’” Victory skipper Kayla Morrison said of Ayres.
“I think it’s just putting her in the worst position possible to shoot. She is known for shooting from anywhere. She’s always really hungry. Talk about hunger.
“She is someone who will score the ugliest goal in the world, because she’s just willing to do the ugly stuff. So it will be hard to stop her completely, but we’ll do the best we can just to put her in the worst positions possible.”