“Nothing but a good performance and a win is what we need right now because we’ve had a bit of a turning point and I feel that now we need to just pick up points.”
Matilda Emily Gielnik has experienced an up-and-down season so far in her return to Melbourne, with a calf injury having put the striker on the sideline for several weeks.
Gielnik made her return to action on January 12, two months after her initial injury and is slowly building her way back into a starting side.
“I feel really good at the moment,” Gielnik said.
“I know that I’m going to feel better as minutes increase, time goes on, games go on, get a bit more momentum under my belt.
“I’m feeling pretty good about going into this weekend, to be honest.
“Without giving too much away, I think I’m pretty close to progressing my minutes to say the very least.”
Reflecting on the last week’s performance, and being the perfectionist that Gielnik is, the striker said she’s been disappointed with how she and the team played.
“To be honest, I took a lot out of the game in terms of it was probably one of my worst performances personally,” she explained.
“And I think as a team we definitely didn’t perform at our best. We scraped the barrel with a draw, which was crucial.
“There were some things to take out of that, but the main problem with that game was we just gave away too much of the ball, too many transitions.”
Looking ahead to Saturday’s match against her former side, Gielnik expressed how important leaving Brisbane with all three points is.
“It was hard for me to watch that first game against Brisbane, I actually thought we were the better team. We kind of put ourselves on the back foot,” she said.
“We let them get the best of us in certain situations. I actually don’t think we had a very good game. But physically and mentally and technically we are the better team.
“Nothing but a good performance and a win is what we need right now because we’ve had a bit of a turning point and feel that now we need to just pick up points.
“You always want to beat your former team, but it’s more or less just about us as a group. Getting momentum back and three points is crucial.”
One player that Brisbane will need to be on the lookout for is Rachel Lowe who is experiencing a career-best run in blue having scored eight goals to start the season and Gielnik was full of praise for the former Matilda.
“She’s been great. She had a tough run last year coming off a bit of a Covid situation and she’s fully recovered from that,” she explained.
“You can see the momentum she’s getting. She’s been absolutely quality for us.
“I think this is some of the best football that she’s been playing. I’m really happy for her.”
“She’s come up really big for us this season and like I say to all players, change isn’t always necessary, but change is good and it’s worked in her favour.”
