Melbourne Victory beat Spring Hills FC 3-1 in Round 23 of the Senol NPL Victoria Women to maintain a chance of making Finals.
The Girls in Blue’s second win in a row, following a resounding success over Melbourne City last time out, keeps them in eighth position and still in pursuit of South Melbourne, who occupy the final top-six spot.
At the Home of the Matildas on Sunday afternoon, Victory took charge during the opening half hour. Leyla Hussein opened the scoring, converting the rebound to a Sienna Saveska shot that goalkeeper Ayana Aoyagi could only palm out, before Ella O’Grady doubled the lead from close range after the visitors failed to pick up their opponents when Emmy Traynor crossed.
An impressive Aleksandra Sinclair effort halved the arrears on the stroke of half-time, but the hosts returned from the rooms reinvigorated, and made certain of the three points with 20 minutes remaining thanks to Jasmine Millar’s thumping near-post finish that crashed in off the underside of the crossbar.
Match details are available by clicking here.
Speaking to MelbourneVictory.com.au, interim Head Coach, Harley Hamdani, gave his reaction to the win, with A-League Women’s Head Coach, Jeff Hopkins, away leading the A-League Women’s All Stars.
“We’re pleased with the performance, the result and our approach leading into the game. Using the last performance against Melbourne City as a platform, we wanted to be more assertive in controlling the game, with and without the ball, and the playing group did an excellent job to deliver on that.
“We moved the ball through the thirds well, and while we’re disappointed not to have taken more of our opportunities early in the game, we can be happy with the number of good chances created. Defensively, we managed well, and the work ethic displayed to apply pressure whenever the opponent had the ball was exactly what we were looking for.
“We’ve made more steps forward over the past couple of weeks and look forward to our next challenge this Friday at Bentleigh.”
