Melbourne Victory head coach Jeff Hopkins hailed his team’s Westfield W-League campaign despite a Semi Final loss to Perth Glory on Sunday.
A Sam Kerr hat-trick led Perth to a 4-2 extra-time win at AAMI Park, ending Victory’s Premiership-winning campaign.
Hopkins was disappointed by his team’s performance, but said it deserved praise for its season.
“I think tonight is about getting together with the players and just congratulating them on a really good season and then maybe having a look at this maybe tomorrow or the day after,” he said.
“I think the performance was disappointing. A lot of the things we’d done in previous games throughout the season we didn’t do today so that was most probably the most disappointing thing for me and disappointing for the players as well because they’ve been magnificent this season.
“Even there at the end, nobody gave up, they kept going until the last minute.”
Christine Nairn and Grace Maher were on the scoresheet for Victory, the former opening the scoring and the latter forcing extra time.
But Hopkins lamented his team’s defending, as Kerr struck a hat-trick to go with Rachel Hill’s header.
“There seems to be almost a bit of a spell when the ball is around her (Kerr). She’s a great player and she effects the game and she did very well today and I can’t take anything away from her,” he said.
“Looking at some of our defending today and the way that we handed goals away or the situations that led to goals was pretty disappointing.
“I’ve got no problem putting my hand up and saying I think the better team won on the day.”
