This forum is for the discussion of women's football, the fastest growing participation sport in Australia. This includes local women's football and the A-League Women.
Western Sydney Wanderers v Adelaide United
Saturday 8 December 2012
Campbelltown Stadium, Sydney
Local kick-off: 2pm
Referee: Lara Smith
Western Sydney Wanderers will be eager to prove that last week’s one-sided defeat in Perth was an aberration, rather than the start of a form slump. The league’s newest club can ill-afford anything other than three points against the bottom side in the competition if they wish to stay in the hunt for a finals berth. The Wanderers though will mindful of a dramatic 4-3 loss against Adelaide on the opening day of the season, which will provide extra incentive for the home side.
After their bright opening to the season, which included that win over the Wanderers and a narrow defeat in Perth, the wheels appear to have fallen off somewhat for Adelaide United.
Coach Dave Edmondson has understandably mad several changes to his squad again in the hope of reinvigorating his battle-weary charges. With memories of that opening round win still fresh, this may well mark a perfect opportunity for the Lady Reds to kick-start their season.
Western Sydney Wanderers squad: 1. Liz DURACK (gk), 2. Samantha SPACKMAN, 3. Alexandra HUYNH, 4. Alesha CLIFFORD, 5. Olivia KENNEDY, 6. Rachael SOUTAR, 8. Vanessa HART, 9. Sarah WALSH (c), 10. Servet UZUNLAR, 11. Louise FORS, 12. Jessica SEAMAN, 13. Catherine CANNULI, 14. Trudy CAMILLERI, 15. Teigen ALLEN, 16. Linda O'NEILL, 20. Thora HELGADOTTIR (gk), 21. Georgia ROWNTREE (*two to be omitted)
2 early goals with luck on our side for a change ,
some structural changes with the mids playing back ,
we frustrate them and get all fresh legs on for the last 20 ,
Bagman wrote:2 early goals with luck on our side for a change ,
some structural changes with the mids playing back ,
we frustrate them and get all fresh legs on for the last 20 ,
Live match commentary painting pretty dire picture .. Can't see any chances from open play and one half chance from dead ball. One comment was 'Adelaide having season they rather forget and this afternoon is no exception'.
No choice now for coaching staff to roll the dice, make some changes and try and get back into this game.
Hard to fathom really.
Seems a decent squad with age, enthusiasm and experience and supplemented with the New Zealanders.
Priority must be to get the defense sorted and stop or reduce the goals against
What's that?? 7 defeats in a row, bottom of the table after winning the wooden spoon last year, and 7 straight games where we can't score from open play. That indicates that there is severe dysfunction all over the park.
Lets be honest here ... If this was the men equivalent, kosmina or another a league coach, someone would be held to account.
FFSA dont give a poo about the lady reds , if they did they would have sacked the coach and put a fresh face in the hot seat....hey dave i know you read this forum, so should have you blogged your statement at the start ??? make your statement with results...
Bagman wrote:It's tight at the top .... It's lonely at the bottom ...
next week is looking like a Cup Final , to not get the wooden spoon AGAIN .
Agree ... Next week is our final. Confidence would be pretty much destroyed though.
Hopefully there is enuff pride and spirit left to fight to avoid the wooden spoon, as aspirations for anything else is in tatters.
My biggest fear is that following another disastrous campaign may see some local players either move interstate or leave the game full stop.
With the losses in the past couple if years of quality players who were either in their prime or not even near it, will be another nail in the coffin for the game.
juniorsupporter wrote:A bigger fear should be that there won't be a team at all. It will go from underfunded to unfunded.
If its not going to be done properly, then best its not done at all, because I'm struggling to see the benefit of the last 4 years of w league for w league in this state. The drop out rate of our players who have played for the lady reds is alarming and we are talking majority of players under 25 years of age.
I agree it needs to be done properly- funded adequately and supported by the Premier League competition and coaches (which is a whole other thread)- but it would be a debilitating for the future of SA elite women's football to not have a WLeague team- the Premier League would continue to be seen as an end in itself and not a pathway to higher levels of football- the WLeague is itself a pathway to national level football in Australia...there'd be no reason for elite players with any aspirations to stay around.
John Cena wrote:FFSA dont give a poo about the lady reds , if they did they would have sacked the coach and put a fresh face in the hot seat....hey dave i know you read this forum, so should have you blogged your statement at the start ??? make your statement with results...
You've got it wrong. The FFSA do care about the Lady Reds, the coach is not the problem. The FFSA system is the problem; read my previous posts.
juniorsupporter wrote:I agree it needs to be done properly- funded adequately and supported by the Premier League competition and coaches (which is a whole other thread)- but it would be a debilitating for the future of SA elite women's football to not have a WLeague team- the Premier League would continue to be seen as an end in itself and not a pathway to higher levels of football- the WLeague is itself a pathway to national level football in Australia...there'd be no reason for elite players with any aspirations to stay around.
Don't get me wrong ... I think the W League pathway is the way to go, BUT it needs to be done properly, otherwise we waste $$$ and burn out players prematurely, with lets face it, pretty ordinary results (and I'm being kind) since it started.
John Cena wrote:FFSA dont give a poo about the lady reds , if they did they would have sacked the coach and put a fresh face in the hot seat....hey dave i know you read this forum, so should have you blogged your statement at the start ??? make your statement with results...
You've got it wrong. The FFSA do care about the Lady Reds, the coach is not the problem. The FFSA system is the problem; read my previous posts.
if the FFSA did care then they wouldve changed things years ago, they dont give a toss about the Lady Reds or the womans structure, the FFSA has had control of the womans league for a fair while yet they leave the people in charge running it which is under performing and they still have a job?? how does that work, too little too late , the womans game suffered years ago when they dropped the reserves league
John Cena wrote:FFSA dont give a poo about the lady reds , if they did they would have sacked the coach and put a fresh face in the hot seat....hey dave i know you read this forum, so should have you blogged your statement at the start ??? make your statement with results...
You've got it wrong. The FFSA do care about the Lady Reds, the coach is not the problem. The FFSA system is the problem; read my previous posts.
if the FFSA did care then they wouldve changed things years ago, they dont give a toss about the Lady Reds or the womans structure, the FFSA has had control of the womans league for a fair while yet they leave the people in charge running it which is under performing and they still have a job?? how does that work, too little too late , the womans game suffered years ago when they dropped the reserves league
Would there have been a South Australian National team if the FFSA did not take over the running of the squad? Did he FFSA have to take over the Lady Reds (instructed by FFA)? I could be wrong, but everything I've heard in the past few years has been that the FFSA were all for supporting the Women's National team, and ensuring that it's survival. If there is evidence that the FFSA was forced into taking control of the squad, by the FFA, then I'll have o agree with you. Do you have any evidence?
There are few things make me yell at the TV more or want to bash out a cranky blog than ill-conceived, small-minded, short-term solutions to footballing growing pains. And I say growing pains, because that's what we're going through, as football finds its feet in Australia and develops on its already strong grassroots base.
I'm talking about Adelaide United chairman Greg Griffin's announcement last week that he was tightening the club's belt and that there was no room for the Lady Reds in this new, thinner footballing waist.
His declaration came after I'd barely put fingers to keyboard to say that the embattled Adelaide United W-League team, which is now up to 24 games without a win and which is struggling to find some goals, needed our support.
No one's denying that the Adelaide team isn't currently yielding results, but Griffin's intended action is a Clive Palmer-esque move that looks purely at bank balances and places to cut costs. It doesn't look at the future of women's football—the fastest, I repeat, fastest growing women's sport in Australia.
It's not just about having a W-League team for Adelaide, although that's incredibly important too. It's about nurturing the next generation of female footballing talent as well as bringing in future A- and W-League fans. I said the same things when I talked about the shock loss of the Central Coast Mariners W-League team—they were the canary in the women's footballing cage and Adelaide are, well, a sign that we didn't do enough to revive or address the death of the first canary.
What Griffin seems not to grasp is that supporting the W-League in turn supports the A-League. Fans like me support both and the W-League is potentially a more inviting, less intimidating entry to football fandom for women who don't come from a strong, football-supporting tradition or family. As I recall, the Adelaide United A-League-only club wasn't so flush with funds a couple of years back, with Football Federation Australia having to bail them out. The club needs all the supporters it can get—male and female.
No one's implying that the club shouldn't aim to be financially viable, but there are other areas to cut costs and other solutions that need to be put on the table before the loss of the Lady Reds. The removal of the W-League team might yield immediate savings on paper, but its long-term decimation of the Adelaide fan-base, its female footballing talent as it's lost to other sports or interstate, and the general ill will fans will feel towards the club won't sustain this financial boon.
Head of women's football, Leeanne Grantham said so herself much more eloquently, when ABC TV caught her pitch-side during the Adelaide v Sydney W-League match on Saturday. She remained positive but didn't mince her words, saying that such a decision wasn't the answer and that she hoped that this issue could be reexamined and resolved.
And you know what makes me the saddest in all this? It's that in spite of what the scoreboard says and the off-field guillotine waiting to drop, the Lady Reds are playing well. Watching them take on the reigning W-League champions on Saturday, knowing that they knew that their footballing future is up in the air and that they were staring down the barrel of a 24th match without recording a win, I was impressed with just how composed, poised, and skilful the players were.
They might have lost by four goals, but they were extremely unlucky not to score. Adelaide aren't the league's pushovers; it's just that shots that go in for other teams seem to skew slightly wide of the goal mouth or are—literally, as we saw Sydney goalkeeper Dimi Poulos do—plucked from the goalward-bound air at the last second to deny them the spoils.
Watching Adelaide play, I never saw the team drop their heads and, had I not known the stats, wouldn't have had a reason to believe they couldn't and wouldn't take Sydney should a couple of shots go their way. In fact, while they might not be coming away with points from the games, Adelaide United are improving with every round. And isn't that what the W-League was created for? To develop women's football?
Shame on you, Greg Griffin, for putting short-term cash flow ahead of female football development.
The future of Adelaide United women’s team is in doubt with the clubs new owners set to dump the W-League team.
The Lady Red’s had a horror season failing to win a match, scoring only four goals and conceding 36.
Their last win was November 2008 and since the inception of the W-league three years ago they have only managed two wins.
Reds chairman Greg Griffin revealed in December last year the Lady Reds cost $100,000 to run in the 2010 season and they were losing patience with the team.
I'd personally like to see the maths on this calculation because none of the women playing are paid much more than their costs and its an exceptionally short season.
Adelaide’s W-League coach Mike Barnett blames the terrible results on the hit-and-miss women’s program in South Australia.
Most other W-League teams have strong links to their state talent or sport institute program, allowing them to train together all year.
Some W-League teams are managed by the club but others by their state federation.
For example Melbourne Victory carries the clubs name but is managed by the Victorian Football Federation, but Adelaide has had little interaction with the state body which generally runs the talent programs.
The Adelaide team came from the local league, trained for only two weeks in the pre-season and were expected to compete with the likes of Brisbane and Sydney which are littered with Matildas and bolstered by quality coaches and facilities.
"Until we're on an even playing field with what the other states are doing, we'll be playing for the next 100 years and not win a game," Barnett told ninemsn.com.
While Adelaide have yet to make a formal announcement those involved have said that it’s a foregone conclusion.
"There are some discussions going on at the moment whether the FFSA may take this program on," Barnett said.
"It is going to be the only solution that will change the face of how the women's game is going.
"If it doesn't happen…we won't produce any good young talented girls and nothing will change.
He indicated the Football Federation of South Australia should take over the management of the team.
Fans are furious at the decision and have been venting their anger on online forums.
They are particularly riled the way in which the new owners have treated the players who have so far found out everything via the media.
The team has been neglected by its club and left to fend for themselves in a competition where the standard has lifted and simply left them behind.
Week after week the W-League standard has been impressive and with that the players confidence and skills have improved.
In a world cup year it sets the Matildas up for a great shot at getting past the round of 16 for the first time ever.
We can only hope the SA Football Federation has the resources to assist the Lady Reds and that the fans keep the faith.
Otherwise there will be a lot of young girls in South Australia who's dreams of playing at the top level will be that much harder.
They're arguably the biggest losers in Australian sport.
Adelaide United's women's soccer team have won two W-League games in three seasons; their last victory was in November 2008.
In three seasons, their goal difference is minus 73.
This season they scored four goals in 10 matches. And conceded 36.
Spare a thought for the plight of Kristi Harvey, one of the Lady Reds' goalkeepers.
"I was under the pump a lot," Harvey said.
"A few points there, it was pretty much damage control."
So why are they so bad?
Coach Mike Barnett says the reason is simple: the hotchpotch women's program in South Australia.
Other W-League teams come from state sports institute programs where they train together for 12 months a year.
The Lady Reds come from the local Adelaide league and train together for two-to-four weeks before the W-League season.
"Until we're on an even playing field with what the other states are doing, we'll be playing for the next 100 years and not win a game," Barnett said.
The new owners of Adelaide United FC appear likely to pull the plug on the women's team.
"They haven't asked to have a meeting with us, how the program works, what it's all about," Barnett said of the consortium of Adelaide businessmen which took over Adelaide United FC last November.
"But they have gone on saying that they don't want to have the women's program any more, it's costing them too much money."
Barnett said the only solution was for Football Federation South Australia (FFSA) to control the team.
"There are some discussions going on at the moment whether the FFSA may take this program on," Barnett said.
"It is going to be the only solution that will change the face of how the women's game is going.
"If it doesn't happen, then it will just stay the same as it is and it will just flounder as it is.
"And we won't produce any good young talented girls and nothing will change.
"Then people will start leaving the game because they'll get disillusioned ... and I would probably be in that basket as well."
Barnett said the Lady Reds were trapped in a vicious cycle.
"It has happened in all the three seasons, we don't get to the required fitness levels and technical standards until pretty much when the season finishes," he said.
"By round nine or 10 ... they finally get to a level where they are more than competitive, but the season is over for us.
"So now they go back to their local clubs again ... next year, we have got to start all over again with them, which is just a waste of time."
juniorsupporter wrote:I agree it needs to be done properly- funded adequately and supported by the Premier League competition and coaches (which is a whole other thread)- but it would be a debilitating for the future of SA elite women's football to not have a WLeague team- the Premier League would continue to be seen as an end in itself and not a pathway to higher levels of football- the WLeague is itself a pathway to national level football in Australia...there'd be no reason for elite players with any aspirations to stay around.
Don't get me wrong ... I think the W League pathway is the way to go, BUT it needs to be done properly, otherwise we waste $$$ and burn out players prematurely, with lets face it, pretty ordinary results (and I'm being kind) since it started.
I'm not sure about the burning out players part (unless you mean that it's too dispiriting to put all into it and get hammered every week), but I think we're in agreement otherwise...still need some changes in the conduct and ethos of the local elite comp and I think they need to come from coaches and clubs themselves- not sure how much of it FFSA can do much about.
juniorsupporter wrote:I agree it needs to be done properly- funded adequately and supported by the Premier League competition and coaches (which is a whole other thread)- but it would be a debilitating for the future of SA elite women's football to not have a WLeague team- the Premier League would continue to be seen as an end in itself and not a pathway to higher levels of football- the WLeague is itself a pathway to national level football in Australia...there'd be no reason for elite players with any aspirations to stay around.
Don't get me wrong ... I think the W League pathway is the way to go, BUT it needs to be done properly, otherwise we waste $$$ and burn out players prematurely, with lets face it, pretty ordinary results (and I'm being kind) since it started.
I'm not sure about the burning out players part (unless you mean that it's too dispiriting to put all into it and get hammered every week), but I think we're in agreement otherwise...still need some changes in the conduct and ethos of the local elite comp and I think they need to come from coaches and clubs themselves- not sure how much of it FFSA can do much about.
I agree that the ethos, culture and mentality across the board needs to change, but I'm a firm believer in that leadership comes from the top, and in this regard the role of ffsa is fundamental in leading by example and creating the environment for change. The ability to unite all the divisions is critical. They are after all the self imposed custodians of the game.
juniorsupporter wrote:I agree it needs to be done properly- funded adequately and supported by the Premier League competition and coaches (which is a whole other thread)- but it would be a debilitating for the future of SA elite women's football to not have a WLeague team- the Premier League would continue to be seen as an end in itself and not a pathway to higher levels of football- the WLeague is itself a pathway to national level football in Australia...there'd be no reason for elite players with any aspirations to stay around.
Don't get me wrong ... I think the W League pathway is the way to go, BUT it needs to be done properly, otherwise we waste $$$ and burn out players prematurely, with lets face it, pretty ordinary results (and I'm being kind) since it started.
I'm not sure about the burning out players part (unless you mean that it's too dispiriting to put all into it and get hammered every week), but I think we're in agreement otherwise...still need some changes in the conduct and ethos of the local elite comp and I think they need to come from coaches and clubs themselves- not sure how much of it FFSA can do much about.
scipio africanus wrote:I agree that the ethos, culture and mentality across the board needs to change, but I'm a firm believer in that leadership comes from the top, and in this regard the role of ffsa is fundamental in leading by example and creating the environment for change. The ability to unite all the divisions is critical. They are after all the self imposed custodians of the game.
scipio africanus wrote:I agree that the ethos, culture and mentality across the board needs to change, but I'm a firm believer in that leadership comes from the top, and in this regard the role of ffsa is fundamental in leading by example and creating the environment for change. The ability to unite all the divisions is critical. They are after all the self imposed custodians of the game.
I agree that FFSA can be instrumental in effecting such a change- other than telling the clubs and Prems coaches what's expected and giving them the resources to implement the changes, what else can they do? I'm asking for practical ideas and not suggesting that FFSA has done everything possible- however it's a two way street and I think that when you ask clubs and prems coaches to buy into a program aimed at feeding players into a higher level it all gets a bit territorial and not very collaborative. It makes the prems coaches a bit like reserves coaches to the WLeague if you think about it. The first step is to for all to agree about the reasons that the Prems competition exists and then implement programs that everyone buys into and is willing to support. That's the only way that the Prems competition will get strong enough to support a successful WLeague program. That's the long term solution. The short term solution is to find more money to import more players (both interstate and international) with higher level experience that will help to establish the proper culture among the local elite players.
scipio africanus wrote:I agree that the ethos, culture and mentality across the board needs to change, but I'm a firm believer in that leadership comes from the top, and in this regard the role of ffsa is fundamental in leading by example and creating the environment for change. The ability to unite all the divisions is critical. They are after all the self imposed custodians of the game.
I agree that FFSA can be instrumental in effecting such a change- other than telling the clubs and Prems coaches what's expected and giving them the resources to implement the changes, what else can they do? I'm asking for practical ideas and not suggesting that FFSA has done everything possible- however it's a two way street and I think that when you ask clubs and prems coaches to buy into a program aimed at feeding players into a higher level it all gets a bit territorial and not very collaborative. It makes the prems coaches a bit like reserves coaches to the WLeague if you think about it. The first step is to for all to agree about the reasons that the Prems competition exists and then implement programs that everyone buys into and is willing to support. That's the only way that the Prems competition will get strong enough to support a successful WLeague program. That's the long term solution. The short term solution is to find more money to import more players (both interstate and international) with higher level experience that will help to establish the proper culture among the local elite players.
Js there is so much I can say on this topic, but I will refrain for my own personal reasons.
I'll just reiterate that the ffsa are the self appointed caretakers of the game (the stakeholders, those volunteers who run the clubs, do not appoint them - a failure in the governance model there in itself).
In the private sector, what do u think happens to the CEO who doesn't have any solutions to the company's problems and looks to his/her customers for the solution or to apportion blame?
I'll leave you with that thought and where the onus of responsibility lies.
In the private sector, what do u think happens to the CEO who doesn't have any solutions to the company's problems and looks to his/her customers for the solution or to apportion blame?
You can leave it with me, but I think your analogy is a bit simplistic and not entirely accurate-and part of the problem if I'm to be perfectly honest. I think we may have to agree to disagree on this point. There's so much I could say on the topic, but I'll reserve further comment for my own personal reasons.
