Melbourne Victory head coach Jeff Hopkins shared his thoughts following Sunday night’s 5-2 win against Newcastle Jets.
On the performance…
“Very happy with the win. Very happy with the first half performance.”
“We had a bit of a wobble during the second half – it was a big loss losing Casey (Dumont).”
“We got a few young players on the field, some really good learnings to take out of that.”
“We need to learn to manage games a little bit better.”
“But we steadied the ship and we were reasonably comfortable towards the end.”
On the approach to the second half…
“We understood that when you have a team that is 4-0 down, they’re going to play with quite a bit of freedom. They’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Although they started the half well, I wasn’t too worried because for me that opens up opportunities to break and counter-attack.”
“I was comfortable with letting them come onto us and then looking to hit them on the break, especially in those wider areas where we had a lot of joy in the first half.”
On the stand-out performers…
“I think we were good on both wide flanks. I think our wide players did really well.”
“In the first half we got the ball out to Lia (Privitelli) on the right a lot. She was getting a lot of joy with the full-back, some good quality balls into the box.”
On Kayla Morrison’s hat-trick…
“When your centre-back gets a hat-trick it’s quite a special day. I’m going to go and buy a lottery ticket tonight I think.”
“She loves to score. Obviously she’s had a tough 12 months. I think the whole of the group are very pleased for her.”
“She deserves it. She works hard. We work really hard on set plays. To get a hat-trick today is pretty surreal.”
On the injury concerns…
“I haven’t spoken to anyone about Casey (Dumont) yet. Hopefully she will be ok. She had a bit of a concussion.”
“I think it’s her (Claudia Bunge’s) ankle. I’m glad it’s not a knee. She just caught her studs in the turf and rolled her ankle. Probably the next 24 hours we’ll know how serious it is.”
