Clare Polkinghorne: Round Five

Football can be a funny game sometimes.

Anyone at the W-League clash between Brisbane Roar and Perth Glory could tell you that. After 90 minutes of football it looked as though we (Roar) had wasted all of our opportunities and wasted our dominance in possession to come away with a lacklustre draw.

And yet it took us 3 minutes into injury time to convert one of our countless opportunities. In 10 seconds of play we went from nearly surrendering to a disappointing draw to coming away with maximum points.

Who could have written a better script for Lisa De Vanna? Lisa’s return from injury once again took a massive step forward, netting the winner against her old team in the dying seconds of the game. I couldn’t be happier for Lisa, who wore her heart on her sleeve the whole week leading up to the big game against Perth. Two goals in 60 minutes of football for Lisa, showing her value to any team she kits up for. And the scary thing: she’s only going to get better for us.

Looking back on the Perth game, it was definitely one that we were lucky to come out of with 3 points. There was a little bit of sharpness or spark that was missing out on the field and we know that if we put in anything less than our full potential, we will struggle to win games this season.

However, what is promising is the fact that we didn’t give up hope on a goal and pushed right through to the end of the game. This week at training we have spoken about consolidating our lucky break (and Newcastle’s result against Sydney) with another win this weekend. A win will send us to the top of the table, as Sydney have a bye but will have one game in hand.

Our assignment this week is a very tough Melbourne Victory side in Melbourne. It will be an extremely tough game away from home and I am predicting a very physical encounter. The Melbourne girls are known to get stuck in and do the hard work, which will only make our task even harder. The game will be played at AAMI Park, which will be an awesome experience for all of us to play in a big stadium on a great pitch. So if you're down in Melbourne come along to watch the Victory girls take on the Roar. The game is also the ABC televised game being shown on ABC 1 at 3pm.

This week at training has been about recovering from the game on the weekend. It all started with a 6am gym session Monday morning to get things rolling. There will be one hard fitness session during the week to ensure we keep building on our fitness during the season. We will start to look at the way Melbourne play and the ways in which we will try to break them down on Thursday. We will have Friday off training to make sure we are sharp for Saturday and we will travel down to Melbourne the morning of the game. And then it is down to business 3pm on Saturday.

On a global scale, the FIFA Women’s World Cup draw was announced in Frankfurt this week with the Westfield Matildas set to face off against Brazil, Norway and Equatorial Guinea in Germany June/July 2011. Personally the draw made me very excited, as we now know who stands between the Westfield Matildas and a successful World Cup campaign. There is no better start to a World Cup then kicking off against a powerhouse Brazilian team in a world class stadium. Exciting times ahead.

I’ll leave you with my players to watch for this week: With Lauren Colthorpe’s clearance coming through this week, I’m looking forward to getting a chance to play with ‘Loz’ and seeing her back in action for Roar. Elise Kellond-Knight has also been putting in strong performances on the pitch and I think this week will see her get on the scoresheet.

Clare is a girl with a strong passion for football and the womens game in particular. Captain of W-League side Brisbane Roar, Clare is also a current Matilda. Catch the W-League every week at your local ground, or if you cant make the game live on ABC1. To read Clare's other columns for The Football Sack, click here!