New Melbourne Victory Women’s Head Coach Mike Mulvey is excited about the project he has taken on, with the season getting underway last weekend.
New Melbourne Victory Women-s Head Coach Mike Mulvey is excited about the project he has taken on, with his team’s season getting underway last weekend.
Mulvey, who guided the Gold Coast Hyundai A-League side through the final six matches of last season, has a proven track record in working with young players and developing talent. The former Gold Coast United mentor won three National Youth League trophies in three seasons with the Under 21 squad before moving up to the A-League role.
Melbourne Victory lost its first-round encounter with Perth in difficult conditions away from home, but Mulvey is confident the season will only improve.
Mulvey has replaced Vicki Linton as W-League coach in Melbourne and has previous experience coaching women, having worked with the Queensland Academy of Sport women-s program from 1999 to 2006 before moving to the men-s program for three years, overseeing the development of players such as Socceroo Tommy Oar.
With a history of moulding young players and developing their football careers, Mulvey is excited by the prospect of taking over a team bursting with talented youth.
“Melbourne approached me with a four month project to take the W-League team for the season and I agreed to do that because I wanted to work with the players,” said Mulvey.
“My history is in developing young players and we had a good youth policy at Gold Coast United and the majority of the youth players that I brought through are now playing in the Hyundai A-League.
“There are a lot of good young players at Victory and if I can bring something to them and help develop their chances of becoming Matildas and Young Matildas then I-ll be very pleased with that.”
Melbourne Victory Women have traditionally been a development side with the aim of bringing young Victorian women through the elite player pathway into the Matildas and Mulvey stated that this will continue.
“It is a development environment and we-ll aim to be as competitive as we can and we-re going to allow the players to express themselves on the field. We-ll have some fun, show good discipline and we-ll be well organised.”
With such a short preparation time, Mulvey conceded it may be a difficult start to the season but that not all is lost.
“It-s a big challenge here at Victory I must admit, we haven-t had the best preparation with the coach just coming in a week before the season starting, so I-ve had a look around and seen what the players are like around here and we-re just trying to do the best that we can.
“The players have responded magnificently, I-m really pleased and I can-t ask more of them from the week we-ve been working together.
“The fact of the matter is we have fifteen signed players going into the first game. We don-t have any of our foreigners; out of the three foreigners who played last season only one is returning so we-ve been in the market having a look this week.”
“We-re going to go with the Victorian players, they deserve the opportunity because they-ve trained and responded really well. It will be a tough trip to Perth but we-ll get on the plane, get on the pitch and have a go.”
The team’s next clash is on Saturday, October 27 at the Veneto Club, Bulleen from 4pm.
Be sure to enter the competition to win a signed Melbourne Victory W-League jersey on the W-League’s Facebook. For the complete W-League draw please click here.
