A-League Women’s coach Jeff Hopkins spoke to the media post-match after his side’s 2-2 draw with Wellington Phoenix.
On the performance…
“In the end it was a good point I thought.”
“We played some great football in the first half.”
“We went ahead deservedly, but within a minute they had equalised.”
“We were probably a little bit wasteful with our final ball.”
“Every credit to Phoenix, I think in the second half they came back really strong and brought the game to us.”
“We weren’t good with the ball in the second half.”
“Towards the end we were hanging on a little bit.”
On Wellington’s first goal…
“We couldn’t see from the bench.”
“Every player that could see said it was well out (of play).”
“But you’ve just got to take it on the chin and get on with it I think.”
On Kurea Okino’s improved performances…
“She’s been working really hard on her game.”
“Working hard at working harder on the field without the ball, but also her runs to receive the ball.”
“It’s a work in progress. She’s improving. We’re improving as a team.”
On the disjointed end to the game…
“I think there were a lot of fatigued players out there.”
“Obviously with the international break, I think both teams had a number of players on the field at some stage that had done a lot of travelling.”
On the team’s form across the season…
“I’m really comfortable with where we are at the moment.”
“We started the season off reasonably well performance-wise, but results-wise we started with two defeats.”
“Performances have been tracking upwards every week.”
“I think our first half performance (today) was as good as we’ve played this season.”
“The most pleasing thing today was that the players spoke up after the game. They were pretty critical of us and our passing and causing so many transitions in the second half.”
“They understand what the problem was this week – when the players understand that, the fix is a lot easier.”
