THE Swan Hill women’s soccer team’s hopes of breaking their decade-long finals drought remain alive despite suffering a 9-0 loss to Golden City at the Ken Harrison Reserve on Sunday.
It was a difficult weekend for Swan Hill’s Bendigo Amateur Soccer League teams, losing all four matches across Saturday and Sunday, with the undefeated men’s team having the bye.
The women’s team will be relying on other results to go their way to leapfrog their way into the top six, after falling to eighth on the ladder following La Trobe University’s shock win over the sixth-placed Epsom Scorpions.
That result left the door wide open for Swan Hill, with their home match against the Scorpions in a fortnight’s time likely to decide which team qualifies for the Super Cup.
“It was a disappointing result (against Golden City), but it hasn’t affected our chances of playing finals and that’s still the aim at this stage,” Swan Hill women’s captain Sarah Scott told The Guardian after Sunday’s loss.
“To be honest, the final score didn’t do us justice, we worked hard and gave a pretty consistent effort for about 80 of the 90 minutes, but we just came up against a more determined side that will be hard for any team to beat this year.
“There’s a reason why (Golden City) are on top of the ladder and they showed it today, they scored a couple of really good goals in the first half and ones that you just can’t do anything about.
“Our commitment was there and our effort was there, certainly in the first half, but we fell away in the second half.
“But we’ll learn from it, we’re still developing as a team and we’ll just go away, regroup and make sure that we are ready to put everything into our game against Kyneton this weekend.
“Sunday was our second game in 28 days and while it’s not an excuse, we’re definitely a team that needs to be consistently playing week after week.”
After going down four goals to none in the first half, the Swans conceded another three goals in quick succession to start the second half, before Golden City iced the game with two goals in the final five minutes of the match.
Despite the result, there were positives still to be taken from the loss, with Kimberley Patterson, Amity Scott and Paige Schulz all performing well, along with Abbey Houlihan who returned to the side, alongside under-16 girls players Maddi Muir-Howie, Trinity Shelton and Annabelle Fleming, who all gave a glimpse towards the future.
Also in action on Sunday was the club’s youth boys’ team, who went into their home match against Tatura SC minus several key players due to injury.
The Swans produced an encouraging first half against the second-placed Tatura, with the home side holding their more fancied rivals to a 2-0 lead at the main break.
Weight of numbers eventually prevailed, however, with the injury-hit Swans unable to keep up as the floodgates opened, with Tatura eventually recording an 11-0 win.
It was a similar story for Swan Hill’s under-16 girls’ and boys’ teams, who both suffered losses on Saturday.
The under-16 boys were gallant in defeat, going down 6-4 to FC Eaglehawk, with Qarin Zulkarnain scoring a hat-trick for the Swans in his first match back from injury.
Also finding the back of the net was Oliver Miliado, with Swan Hill coming from 4-1 down at half time, after opening the scoring in the fifth minute of the match, to make a late charge in the second half.
Swan Hill’s under-16 girls travelled to Shadforth Park, where they suffered a 7-0 loss to Golden City.
After conceding six goals in the first half, the Swans rallied after the break to keep the Rams to just one goal in the second half.
