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19Dec21
Heat And Sydney Too Much For Wellington
by Jeremy Ruane
Temperatures in the thirties and perennial Liberty A-League title contenders Sydney FC combined to overcome Wellington Phoenix 3-0 at the Netstrata Jubilee Stadium on December 19, as the fledgling Kiwi combination experienced playing in the heat of an Australian summer for the first time.
Play had barely been under way for thirty seconds when Wellington defensive lynchpin Kate Taylor committed the cardinal sin of playing the ball across the face of her own goal - straight to a Sydney player!
Mackenzie Hawkesby couldn't believe her good fortune, and duly picked out Remy Siemsen on the penalty spot, only for Taylor to make amends for her blunder with a timely interception which denied the Matildas striker the chance to shoot.
That the visitors were going to be in for a torrid afternoon was confirmed in the third minute when speedy winger Cortnee Vine left the usually ultra-reliable fullback Saskia Vosper trailing in her slipstream as she stormed into the penalty area, where she weaved past two more defenders before setting up Siemsen for a shot.
Much to Wellington's relief, it was deflected through to Lily Alfeld, but the 'keeper was deceived by the ball's change of direction, the sphere spilling out of her grasp. Thankfully, Zoe McMeeken was on hand to clear the danger.
The pressure from the home team showed no signs of relenting, with Mackenzie Barry being caught in possession by Siemsen in the eighth minute. Hawkesby then linked with overlapping fullback Ally Green, whose measured cross deserved better reward than to be skied by Vine with the target eight yards away.
Gemma Lewis' charges promptly slipped into battle mode, forcing errors in Sydney's ranks, most notably in regard to the accuracy - or, rather, increasing lack of it - in their passing. And after Green stung the gloves of Alfeld from distance, Wellington spurned a glorious chance to take a shock lead in the thirteenth minute.
The indefatigable Chloe Knott - she ran herself ragged for the cause despite the heat - charged down a clearance, the ball ricocheting to Alyssa Whinham, whose impressive cameos off the bench in Wellington's first two games earned her a starting berth in this contest.
She swiftly proved why she'd earned it, weaving her way past three opponents in a small area of the penalty area to leave herself one-on-one with Sydney goalkeeper Jada Whyman, only to lose her composure at the vital moment and opt to pass instead of shoot, a choice she instantly regretted - a picture of disappointment was she immediately afterwards!
After Taylor had stopped Siemsen in her tracks with a super tackle as the striker looked to exploit Princess Ibini's pass down the right, Sydney opened the scoring in the 24th minute, via a right flank raid.
Following a Jessika Nash throw-in, Vine raced around Vosper again and made a beeline along the by-line towards goal. She shaped to cross, then completely deceived Alfeld by bending a shot around the 'keeper with the outside of her right foot, guiding it into the net by the foot of the far post - a technically outstanding finish, and a goal which the home team had threatened.
Wellington looked to respond, and occasionally gave their hosts cause for concern, but Sydney had far too much nous about them to be threatened by a team playing just its third game at this level.
To their credit, the visitors kept their opponents honest despite the obvious difference in experience, underlining the fact that no team should look on matches against the league's newbies as an easy three points - they'll need to be earned!
Sydney went about looking to add to their tally before the break, Ibini weaving her way through four challenges before seeing her cross pawed away by Alfeld, while Siemsen sent a snapshot from distance well wide of the target nine minutes before half-time, a feat she repeated two minutes later from much closer to the target.
Immediately after this, Wellington debutant Kelli Brown withdrew from the fray with hamstring trouble, having replaced another injury victim, Grace Jale, in the starting line-up.
The striker had made the acquaintance of
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inconsistent referee Georgia Ghirardello - she let a few yellow card offences go unpunished in this match - on a couple of occasions prior to her departure with sone overly aggressive challenges, anger which would be better channelled into sticking the ball in the opposition's net, a feat Brown tends to accomplish more often than not.
Further injury woes struck Wellington minutes later, with Vosper felled by an elbow to her heart. It left the fullback struggling to breathe, especially in light of the heat in which the match was taking place, and while she initially made a slow recovery, her withdrawal from the fray before the hour mark came as no surprise.
The home team piled on the pressure for a second goal before the interval in the shadows of the half-time whistle. Taylor Ray lashed a twenty-five-yarder past the post after another wasteful set-piece delivered by Hawkesby, while prior to blocking an Ibini piledriver, Taylor was caught in possession by the same player, who set sail for goal and let fly, only to see Barry head her shot to safety.
The second spell saw Wellington fire the first shot in anger, five minutes after the resumption of play. A poor touch by Natalie Tobin was pounced on by the wily Knott, whose twenty-yarder, at full stretch, arrowed just past Whyman's right-hand post.
That wee scare didn't exactly please the hosts. If anything, it lit a bomb under them, and in the next five minutes, Sydney thrice attempted to increase their advantage, succeeding on the second occasion.
Green sent Siemsen scurrying through the inside left channel, from where she slipped a pass inside for Vine, who promptly over-ran it. Hawkesby was following up, however, and drilled a shot straight at Alfeld, who was pleased to see Green's rising fifteen-yarder clear the crossbar after she had nutmegged McMeeken then got the better of Isabel Gomez before letting fly.
The goalkeeper wasn't too thrilled by the sight of the ball hitting her net in between times, however. Having failed with virtually all her set-piece deliveries in the first half, Hawkesby employed a short corner routine in the 53rd minute, and it paid dividends as Ibini, took on and beat Knott before unleashing a shot which deflected off Taylor to the unmarked figure of half-time substitute Charlize Rule, who tapped in by the far post.
After Ava Pritchard had attempted to reduce the deficit via a wayward twenty-five yarder, Sydney went for the jugular after the hour mark. Ray drilled one past the post after Green and Siemsen had combined once more, while only a super save from Alfeld denied Vine in a one-on-one situation, after Ibini had bettered McMeeken and engineered an opening for Siemsen to exploit.
The home team made it 3-0 in the 66th minute. Ibini caught Barry in possession and swiftly worked a one-two with Siemsen before firing in a low cross which was emphatically swept home by Hawkesby.
A raft of substitutions, the playing conditions and the enforced water breaks every fifteen minutes effectively combined to render the rest of the match a rather disjointed affair, but there were still a couple of moments which could have seen the scoreline change, such as in the 69th minute, when a poor Whyman goal kick prompted Pritchard to unleash a snapshot which flew past the upright.
The introduction of Maria Rojas twenty minutes from time gave the Sydney attack another dimension, and from her initiative, fellow replacement Rachel Lowe found the net in stoppage time, only for the offside flag to come to the rescue of a Wellington team which never gave up, and which nearly benefited from a sliced attempted clearance by Ibini which forced substitute goalkeeper Kate Offer to produce a scrambling denial in the dying minutes.
The visitors were a well beaten side, however, and only typically tigerish defending - Barry was immense in this regard - prevented Sydney from running up a scoreline far more convincing than the 3-0 victory by which they claimed the points.
Sydney: Whyman (Offer, 82); Nash (Lowe, 46), McLean, Tobin, Green; Hunter (Rule, 46), Ray, Hawkesby; Vine (Satchell, 73), Siemsen (Rojas, 69), Ibini
Wellington: Alfeld; McMeeken, Barry, Taylor, Vosper (Jasnos, 59); Whinham (Walker, 68), Gomez, Wisnewski; Pritchard, Knott, Brown (Kramer, 38)
Referee: Georgia Ghirardello
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