Report by Tommy Doleman

Abbey Meakins has challenged Perth SC to find some consistency. Photo by Rob Lizzi

Northern Redbacks and Perth SC will be looking to recover from recent defeats when they clash at Macedonia Park in Round Nine of the NPLWA – Women’s competition on Friday.

Leaders Redbacks were beaten for the first time in the league when they went down 1-0 at Balcatta.

And the Azzurri’s three-game winning streak ended abruptly with a 5-1 humbling at home to champions Murdoch University Melville, where they conceded twice in the opening seven minutes.

Midfielder Abbey Meakins said last week’s game showed there was still work to be done by Danielle Brogan’s team if they are going to be prominent in the end-of-season shake-up.

“Obviously we were really disappointed by the weekend’s result. We know we’ve had some good performances over the season, but defensively our structure wasn’t really enough at the weekend, and we have to fix that,” Meakins said.

“We need to focus on starting strong and not digging ourselves in a hole in the first 5-10 minutes. It’s about coming out firing and being aggressive from the start.

“We’ve definitely seen glimpses of it. Even on Saturday we were moving the ball around well, but couldn’t finish. When we are on, and once we start playing well for 90 minutes, I think we’re going to have a good end to the season.”

Meakins has been at full fitness for nearly a year now, having been out of the game for over 12 months following an ACL injury suffered early in the 2019 season.

“I’m loving my football at the moment, but my season has probably been a bit up and down and I haven’t started this year as strongly as I finished last season,” she said.

“It was great to get through a full season last season and it was the first time I played Night Series for a couple of years too this year, which gave me plenty of minutes.

“My confidence is back now and I’m not as worried about my knee, which is great because it was something I struggled with when I first came back. But it’s all good and I’m now looking up my game in different areas, particularly on the finishing side which is what I’m working on at training.”

Meakins is looking to contribute more goals and assists from midfield. And having scored one of the goals of 2020 against Balcatta, she has already thrown her name in the hat for this season’s award with a stunning volley in Round Five against Fremantle City.

Describing the goal, Meakins said: “I had pushed forward and was just wanting to take a touch and play it across the pitch, but the ball kind of bounced up on me and the touch ended up going into space instead.

“I saw I had a couple of metres on my defender, so I just decided to have a ping and I haven’t hit one on my left foot like that in so long.

“It was probably more instinctive, I don’t practise too many left-footed volleys at training, so when they do come around, I suppose I just have a swing!”

Turning her attention back to this week, Meakins says Perth are relishing the challenge of facing the league leaders and the opportunity to put last week’s result behind them, despite having lost all three of their league games to Redbacks in the NPL era.

“We do have a bit of a point to prove. Redbacks are a really good team, who have been a tough game previously and it was a tough result against them earlier in the season (when Redbacks won 3-2),” she said. “But this is probably a really good game for us coming up this weekend, to draw a line under last week’s performance once and for all and hopefully kickstart our season again.

“The first 15 minutes is going to be really important for us, so hopefully we can have a good start and get an early goal. We need to move the ball quickly, attack and defend together, and that transition play is going to be important too, because it wasn’t really there at the weekend.”

Also on Friday, second-place MUM FC host Hyundai NTC at Wormall Civil Stadium.

The win over Perth put Mark Jones’ side just a point behind Redbacks. Murdoch thumped NTC 5-1 in Round Two but that is the youngsters’ only loss this season and they are looking to extend their unbeaten run to six games.

On Saturday, Balcatta can build on their win over Redbacks when they travel to a Curtin team which secured a second draw of the season at Subiaco last Sunday.

That 1-1 result was Subiaco’s first point of the season and they are back at Rosalie Park on Monday when they host Fremantle City on the public holiday.

Fixtures

Friday

Northern Redbacks v Perth SC (7pm)
Murdoch University Melville v Hyundai NTC (7.30pm)

Saturday

Curtin University v Balcatta (5pm)

Monday

Subiaco v Fremantle City (5pm)