Melbourne Victory Women kick started its Westfield W-League season in emphatic style, with a convincing 2-0 triumph over Central Coast Mariners Women at Telstra Dome on Saturday.
Melbourne Victory Women kick started its Westfield W-League season in emphatic style, with a convincing 2-0 triumph over Central Coast Mariners Women at Telstra Dome on Saturday.
Victory Women turned it on in front of a receptive home crowd, which had already exceeded 2000 spectators at half time, peppering the goals and eventually being rewarded for effort after the interval.
Victory Women dominated the contest from the opening whistle, having three genuine chances inside the first 20 minutes.
Brittany Timko had a goal disallowed on 25 minutes due to an earlier infringement which saw her be too over-zealous in getting the ball through the Mariners- defence.
It was the popular Sarah Groenewald who had the best of the opening chances on 33 minutes, her slicing shot sailing wide.
Central Coast Women then almost made Victory Women pay for its wastefulness, but a blinding save from star goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri denied a cracking shot.
Barbieri, who had only returned from national duties with the Westfield Matildas on Thursday, was at full stretch and clutched the curling ball with both hands.
Despite its stronghold on the match, the home side went into the half time break goal-less and with a 0-0 score line.
However, the second half would be completely different.
It took only seven minutes for New Zealand import Marlies Oostdam to put Victory Women ahead in sensational style.
She curled the ball past the Central Coast goalkeeper from a long range free kick, putting herself in the record books as the first ever goal scorer for Victory Women.
It was Oostdam-s New Zealand friend Rebecca Tegg who virtually sealed the match for the home side on 60 minutes.
A defensive mix up by Central Coast gift-wrapped Melbourne-s second goal, which was neatly finished off by Tegg with only the goal keeper to beat.
Victory Women proceeded to lock the game down, with the only other real chance of the match coming from skipper Tal Karp.
Karp-s attempted cross-come-shot hit the cross bar on 87 minutes, but enough damage had been done to earn her team a valuable three points in the season opener.
