Hayley Crawford: Capitulation against Canberra

As I’m sitting here writing this I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong on Saturday...

The match was a hard fought battle between two teams who right up until the 74th minute were deadlocked at 0-0. Both our girls and Canberra United had chances throughout the first half but neither side could capitalise. We went into the sheds full of confidence that we were matching the defending Premiers all over the park.

The game continued back and forth until a mad ten minute peiod at the very end in which we somehow conceded five goals! The rest is history and to those not at the game the score line reflects a completely different game to what was played out in front of a dumbfounded home crowd.

Post-match the mood was one of shock and disbelief as to what just happened; we spoke in the locker-rooms about staying together through times like these and that we would turn it all around with a solid week of training.

We have three field sessions and a gym session to move on and now it’s imperative that we start winning and picking up points. With the league being closer to a sprint than a marathon every game is vital as we don’t want to be left behind on the ladder.

All our attention now is focused on how we are going to come away from our match on Saturday against Melbourne Victory with three points. It’s a tough trip to Geelong to face a tough team but with fingers crossed we hope to return with our first win on the road.

Hayley

Club Captain for Westfield W-League side Newcastle Jets, Hayley has represented Australia at many levels including the Matildas. Catch the W-League every week at your local ground or if you can't make the game watch it on ABC1. Read Hayley's other columns for The Football Sack!

This season, the Newcastle Jets launched a Facebook page just for their W-League team, be sure to like it.