Western looks to bring the grit to Reds fairytale in ALW elimination final
Western United's ALW season has been a rollercoaster but with a trip to a red-hot Adelaide for an elimination final upon them, Chloe Berryhill (née Logarzo) is relishing a shot to upend the narrative.
After a season in which they were defined by their inconsistency, few are expecting Western United to serve as anything other than second fiddle to Adelaide United’s protagonist in Sunday’s elimination final. For skipper Chloe Berryhill (née Logarzo), though, that’s exactly the type of role that can bring out the best in the green and black when it matters most.
Held to a 1-1 draw away to Wellington in the final round of the regular season, Western finished the season in sixth place, condemned to a trip to South Australia by their inferior goal difference to fifth-placed Canberra, who will face Central Coast in Sunday’s other elimination final.
While Brisbane’s collapse across the second half of the season meant that they didn’t need to sweat on their finals slot, Kat Smith’s will enter this year’s playoffs in the most indifferent form of any of its belligerents: the only one of the six to not win in the season’s final round and the only won to have won fewer than three games in their last five.
Stringing together wins, however, has proven something of a challenge for Western this season. Or results of any kind, really, because just twice in 2024-25 did Western record the same result in back-to-back games: a two-game losing run against Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory in early March that was immediately followed by wins over Canberra and Newcastle.
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In every other game this season, the only thing that Berryhill and company could generally guarantee was that the previous week’s result wouldn’t carry over – wins following losses, draws following wins and losses following draws and so on. Conversely, after an indifferent start to the campaign, the Reds rattled off multiple winning and unbeaten runs throughout the campaign, losing just twice in their last 16 games.
“Finals are what we all play for,” she said. “I'm really excited; this is something that's really tremendous for the club. Third year, third finals. So we're really looking forward to it.
“For us, getting straight into it is a positive. We've had quite an inconsistent last month and a half. Playing and then not playing during the international window. And for us, it's just about being consistent and keeping our minutes up.”
Securing just their second-ever finals appearance in 2024-25 with a club-record 14 wins, the 45 points Adrian Stenta's side accumulated this season would have been enough to secure them the premiership in 2023-24 but, in the face of Melbourne City and Victory’s historic seasons, has only proven enough to host an elimination final.
Nonetheless, with this successful season and a growing sense of momentum at their backs, to say nothing of the 3-1 win they secured over Western a few weeks ago, Fiona Worts and company are widely expected to set up a two-legged semifinal with Victory on Sunday. An expectation that is fine with Berryhill.
“Adelaide, we played two weeks ago, and that was a really good game,” said the Western skipper. “Doing a review on them, how can we refine? How can we go back to pick out the things that we can score our goals, and then go from there?
“We know they can score bangers. They've got some absolute quality in their team. How can we stay compact? How can we protect our goal and really just stay disciplined within this game?
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“[Upsetting the narrative is] the best thing about being out in the west. It's something that we pride ourselves on. The grit, the hard work, the desire. I don't have to bring that out in our players. It's finals football, so it's do or die, and I think that's the most motivation.”
At the end of her third year in Tarneit, Berryhill has helped establish the foundation of women’s football at Western, serving as a focal point on the pitch and in the dressing room for a side that has qualified for the playoffs in all three years of its existence.
Starting all 21 of her appearances this season, the midfielder earned a recall to the Matildas for the November international window – one that came to a premature end through concussion – and the 1765 minutes she logged was the most she had ever logged in a single league season in her career – breaking the 1461 minute mark she set in 2023-24.
Out of contract at the end of this campaign, the 30-year-old is expected to head to the United States in the offseason but, for now, has yet to make a call on her playing future, be it in Melbourne’s west – where she owns a house – or elsewhere in the A-League Women or overseas, saying “I'm not looking forward as far as that. For me, it's all about the finals.”
Header Image: Western United