A huge week on the track has paid absolute dividends for the Wattle Park Women, who registered their first win since May 22nd 2021. Not even wet and muddy conditions could wipe the smiles off the Animals’ faces as the final siren sounded to end a 714-day drought.
Two strong nights of training during the week had given the Women a strong sense of belief going into Saturday’s game against Canterbury. And that only continued onto game day, where full team arrival was a whole hour and forty minutes before the first bounce. The pre-game schedule had been written and so it was done with a strong warm-up on the mud-caked ground and an even stronger coach’s address ticking down the minutes until the game started. To summarise, the vibes were immaculate.
When the siren sounded and the first quarter began, the Animals were on. The feeling on the ground was palpable, even as the rain tumbled down, and a pack mentality to get the ball forward with purpose formed. It didn’t take long for Wattle Park to get on the board as, within minutes, they’d worked the ball inside 50 where it bounced around until it was suddenly in Paige Hill’s hands, and a second later, sailing through the goals. Raucous cheers from the bench accompanied the celebrations on the field as the Animals got around their goalkicker, before retaking their positions with massive grins on their faces. After weeks of building, getting structures and team connection right, it felt like it was all coming together.
Wattle Park continued surging forward, with the ball spending much of the first quarter in their possession, so much so that a brilliant Clover Hart-shepherd allowed Nyari Grzyb time to collect herself before kicking an amazing major. With two more scoring shots, the Animals took a 14-point lead in the first break after limiting Canterbury to zero inside 50s.
The huddle was electric at quarter time, the culmination of months of work resulting in scoreboard reward allowed for a massive breath of relief. But the work wasn’t done and the Women were united in that belief as they started the second term. After forty minutes of football in the middle two quarters, and despite both teams’ efforts, only two behinds had been added to the Animals’ score. But this doesn’t properly convey the amount of work every single player put in, with significant contests, clearing kicks to leading teammates and expert decision-making all playing a part in the team’s ability to keep the lead.
By the fourth term, the rain had eased but the ground itself was still a muddy mess. It didn’t seem to faze the Animals, who had spent the better part of three quarters with a singular focus of keeping the ball in their half of the oval and succeeding at it. Numerous inside 50s were counted but no score eventuated, until a centring kick from Ashton Billing to the goal square rewarded a full-ground run from Jemima Clancy, whose soccer off the deck gave the Animals their third goal of the day. Despite some oppositional opinions about whether the ball was touched or not, the goal umpire’s signal set off a thunderous celebration, none more so than from Clancy herself, her passion loud and clear from those watching on.
Wattle Park spent the last few minutes of the game the way they had spent the whole game, constantly on the move, getting players to contests and setting their structures up to keep the ball inside 50. But the final siren sounded like the word finally and was the icing on the cake for a team who’d pretty well known they’d had the game sewn up relatively early. The team had been consistently aware of the clock for those last minutes and to hear that siren made everything feel exponentially worth it.
A huge sense of relief blanketed the Women as running teammates caught up to other running teammates, bodies everywhere in leaping jumps and hugs with fists in the air. Only five players of the 23 who took the field on Saturday were involved in the Animals’ last win, but the whole group is aware of how much time, dedication, and energy has been put in to build something at Wattle Park AFC, and to finally see the reward for effort is something to be immensely proud of.
Hart’s attacking nature and ability to rebound from the middle of the ground contributed to the Animals’ persistence in not just keeping the ball out of their opposition’s hands, but surging it forward to give her teammates every chance of getting to it, which makes it a surprise to no one she was best-on-ground. Goal kickers Hill and Clancy join her on the best player’s list, while Billing’s work in the ruck and midfield extraordinaires Elli Haylock and Jas Ardern round it out.
WP 3.4.22
CAN 0.2.2
