Pride Keeper Aims To Blunt Olympic
Words: Garry McKenzie
Image: Chris Simpson
Western Pride Women captain and goalkeeper Kirsten Veeren is banking on another strong defensive performance against free-scoring against high-flyers Olympic FC Women on Wednesday night.
Coming off just their second win of the season, Pride face an Olympic side sitting third on the PlayStation National Premier Leagues Women's table thanks to a prolific attack that has twice notched double figures this season and averages over six goals a game.
The scoring spree has been aided by star striker Kirsten Jamieson, who leads the competition's Golden Boot race with an amazing haul of 33 goals this season.
However, Veeren said she was sure Pride could handle the challenge thrown up by their prolific opponents in their rescheduled Round 8 match.
“If you look at the table we’ve got pretty good goals against so we do quite well defensively. We scramble well and we work as a unit,” Veeren said.
The Pride custodian praised Pride’s defenders Jasmin Graham, Alicia Cole, Montanna McAvoy and Camilla Falaniko Ah in blunting several of the league’s attackers in recent weeks including SWQ Thunder Women’s Amber Lloyd and former Westfield W-League player Tegan Riding of Eastern Suburbs FC Women.
However, Veeren warned stopping Jamieson was only part of the equation if Pride were to get anything out of the match.
“Kirsten Jamieson is scoring a lot of their goals but everyone else is scoring goals at Olympic as well,” Veeren said.
“They have been doing it all season so eliminating one player isn’t all we want to do - we want to stop them all getting through.”
Veeren is well acquainted with the threat Olympic pose after spending the past three years at the Brisbane-based club before joining Pride in the off-season.
The goalkeeper has been in form this season, culminating Pride’s last start 3-1 win that saw her effect a string of fine saves to thwart a rampaging Thunder strike-force.
“I’ve been waiting to play Olympic for a long time,” Veeren said of the clash against her former teammates.
“However we’ll need to play the same as we did against top sides Easts, Souths and The Gap to really push them,” she concluded.
PlayStation 4 National Premier Leagues Women’s 2016 – Round 8 (rescheduled)
Western Pride FC Women v Olympic FC Women
Wednesday, June 8 | 7:00PM
Briggs Road Sporting Complex, Ipswich
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