Melbourne Victory Head Coach Jeff Hopkins was pleased to see two new names on the scoresheet in Friday’s 2-0 win over the Wellington Phoenix.
Victory returned to action with a second straight win, Alana Murphy and Tiffany Eliadis scoring their first Liberty A-League goals.
Speaking at his post-match news conference, Hopkins discussed the Phoenix, Murphy and Eliadis, and his squad amid a busy run of fixtures.
on the Phoenix…
“They did exactly what we thought actually. I’ve seen a lot of them over the last few weeks, sitting at home waiting to play. They’re a team full of youth, full of enthusiasm and energy and they really made it hard for us and to be honest not playing for three weeks, we weren’t at our sharpest at the beginning of the game. We definitely scored against the run of play early on. That was one of the things we highlighted at the beginning of the game and before the game was that they definitely had weapons to hurt us, but also they would switch off at times, being young players, and they would make mistakes so just making sure that we were in a position to capitalise when those mistakes came and that’s the way it went. The game was very, very close apart from a few chances.”
on first goals for Murphy and Eliadis…
“It’s exciting for them. Young Murph as well, I think we’ll give her that first goal. She’s been a real revelation for us this year, just turned 16 and playing regularly in the side and putting in some really good performances as well. To get the goal today, great for her, great for her confidence and also for Tiff. Tiff hasn’t played, she had an injury in pre-season, she’s struggled to get back into the side. She’s been working hard recently and she’s got her chance today and she took it really well. I was really pleased for her to get the goal. I didn’t realise it was her first goal in the A-League Women’s competition. She’s been around a long time actually.”
on Claudia Bunge…
“That was just a bit of cramp actually. We had a bit of a laugh about it afterwards. Centre-backs shouldn’t get cramp, they don’t do enough running. We took her off just as a precaution, obviously we’ve got a game on Tuesday and we expect her to be leaving us soon for the next FIFA window. Hopefully she’ll get some good game time over there, some good experience and come back better for it to us.”
on Brooke Hendrix…
“I was really pleased with Brooke today. She’d had a big journey earlier on in the week, she’s only been here sort of 24-48 hours, had a lot of running around to do to make sure she was clear for the game. We wanted to get her involved in some way or form and the last 15 minutes she came on and she settled in really well. I’ve been really pleased with Amy Jackson as well so obviously when ‘Bungey’ leaves, I think most probably Amy will be the natural player to go into that position and just cover for her while she’s away. You saw that towards the end of the game she was very comfortable just swapping between the centre-back and the number six role. We’ve got a little bit of cover there now. We get Courtney (Nevin) and Kyra (Cooney-Cross) back for Tuesday’s game and I think Melina Ayres is still a couple of weeks away and ‘Zimm’ (Catherine Zimmerman) hopefully will be ready in the next seven days.”
