Footscray Hockey Club

The State League 2 Womens side secured promotion to SL1 today with a win against Kew.

Ladies Director Nicole Virtuoso, who has been in the position for 9 years, was ecstatic for the team, coach and club. A dream come true to finally be back in SL1. It has been over 30 years since the Womens division has played in the Premier League in Victoria. Nicole’s mother Marianne Evans played in the last FHC SL1 equivalent team in 1979 (A Grade as it was called back then). The Women’s 2nd Pennant C, 3rds Pennant D and 6th Metro 3 North are in Grand Finals also together with 4 Mens sides: State League 2, Pennant E, Metro 1 West, Metro 3 West. Lets hope for 8 out of 8!

Match Report from Coach Luke Michael

There was much anticipation before the preliminary match versus Kew at the SNHC. The team not only needed to win to make the grand final against MCC, the team needed to win to secure promotion to Victoria’s Premier League – State League 1. Once again the team arrived at the ground and discussed what they we wanted to achieve for this game. A very switched on group of players commenced their warm up preparations and returned to the field and ready to go.

The game began and a pumped Footscray set the pace. They pressed Kew and caused them to turnover the ball. FHC applied pressure on their keeper who made some good early saves. Kew had a couple of breakaways that were shut down before they entered the circle. The girls worked a corner half way through the first half and executed it correctly to go 1 – 0 up. Shortly after this they earned another corner and once again we scored. Amy Turnbull scoring both goals. With 40 seconds to go in the half the girls earned another corner and this time Zoe Shipperly scored our third to take us 3 – 0 nil into half time.

The team knew they had to keep control to ensure Kew were not given a chance to get back into the game. FHC began dominating the second half, however then the passing play slowed down and this allowed Kew to string some passes together. They earned a corner from a turnover and scored, 3 – 1. The team began their passing game again and took back control of the rest of the game. FHC forced yet earned another corner which was converted to be 4 – 1 up and in complete control of the game. We had more chances to score but failed to convert and played out the rest of game. The girls elated to earn the promotion to WSL1 and entry to the grand final next week against MCC. FHC now have the 4th chance of the season to challenge MCC.

Coach Luke Michael stated “Our best performance of the year, we played the first half of the game like a WSL1 team. The girls executed a very disciplined  game to earn a spot in the grand final. It is the reward the players deserve after all the hard work and sacrifices they have made this year. This week will focus on Grand Final preparations. It should be a terrific day next Sunday with our Women & Men in the grand finals. Thank you to all the supporters  – it was amazing to see the red white and blue in huge numbers. Hope to see you all next week. Well done ladies.”