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A-League Women's Round 10 talking points

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Expert
7th February, 2022
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It’s the beginning of February Football Frenzy with 24 games in 23 days for the A-League Women’s competition. With games coming thick and fast there are plenty of stories and milestones that have emerged from the latest batch of games.

Goalkeeper, record breaker
It was another good weekend for the goalkeepers. In Sydney, Jada Whyman set a new league record for consecutive clean sheets. Sydney FC’s 2-0 win over Brisbane represented her eighth straight clean sheet seeing her overtake Lydia Williams who managed seven.

She was made to work for the milestone with this Roar side still desperate to get their season into some sort of groove, peppering the Sydney FC goal. Shea Connors in particular was lively but unable to best Whyman. Sydney has now gone over 12 hours without conceding a goal.

At the opposite end of the career spectrum but no less talented is Melbourne City shot stopper, Melissa Barbieri. Bubs celebrated 25 years since her professional league debut. Back in 1997, 16-year-old Barbieri was running out for ITC Victoria in the old Ansett Summer Series – the Women’s NSL.

It was a 1-0 loss for Barbieri on that day, with Cindy Doyle scoring the lone goal for the ACT Academy of Sport. Across 25 years, Barbieri has played at World Cups and won an Asian Cup, been a stalwart at Matildas level, a trailblazer for mothers returning to the sport, and has been in the unique position of growing and evolving alongside women’s football in this country.

This season she has showed no signs of slowing down and continues to produce top shelf goalkeeping performances. Her longevity is a testament to her heart as much as it is her skill.

The race for fourth spot
The chaos league once again reigned supreme with Canberra announcing themselves as a banana skin team.

After a 3-3 draw with Newcastle Jets last weekend, the team in green backed it up with another 3-3 draw this time against Perth Glory. With the Jets also going down to Adelaide 3-0 this weekend, the race for fourth spot appears to be led by Melbourne Victory.

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Cassidy Davis of the Jets

Cassidy Davis (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

Their 2-0 win over Wellington Phoenix was their first match since January 16 and sees them currently occupying fourth spot. Their 15 point haul was built namely in the opening weekends of the season and it could hold them in good stead. Perth currently sitting in fifth also have 15 points but have played two more games than Victory.

Victory will need to contend with a jam packed schedule but will regain their Matildas and can now count a second centre back with the injury replacement signing of American Brooke Hendrix.

Perth meanwhile won’t have to contend with personnel comings and goings so much as the continuing road trip over east. How these two sides navigate the next month could well determine the final placings of the ladder.

Half a season in a month
For Victory, that navigation includes how they handle the sheer volume of games they need to get through. Covid has wreaked havoc across the competition and the leagues have made February the month to play catch up across the A-League Men and Women.

For some teams, this will not affect them nearly as much as others. Currently, after Round 10, Wellington Phoenix is the only side to have played 10 matches in ALW.

For some clubs, one period of quick turnaround will be followed by business as usual. Others, like Canberra United must contend with six games across February including five in 15 days while Melbourne Victory will play half a season – seven games – in a month. It’s a tough ask for any athlete but particularly for those who are semi-professional.

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Ultimately, game style and personnel may not determine where Victory finish on the ladder but rather just how well they as a squad can deal with that many matches in such a short space of time.

Grace Wisnewski’s decision to opt out
The decision to not play a game is not one that is made lightly. So when it was announced that Wellington Phoenix midfielder Grace Wisnewski had opted out of the match against Melbourne Victory due to her mental health, the football community sat up and took notice.

The 19-year-old has been dealing with anxiety for about 18 months, Nix head coach Gemma Lewis explained. She didn’t want to hide behind a fake omission reason and instead wanted to be honest about how she’s feeling and why she didn’t play.

“With the short turnaround, she doesn’t get a good recovery space and settles in enough time to be ready again, and she doesn’t want to put the team in any necessary harm by potentially not playing as well as she would have liked to,” Lewis explained.

“She didn’t feel comfortable and she did find everything a lot more heightened, so on reflection and how she’s currently feeling, she thinks it’s just too short of a turnaround for her to be at her best for the team.

“We massively support that and we also think it’s probably the right decision for the team in this moment in time, and as much as she’s a big loss for us because she’s played 90 minutes of every game, and she’s a workhorse for us, we also respect where she’s at and how much she’s been pushing through.”

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To have the maturity and self-awareness to extract herself from a situation she knew would not serve her or her teammates well speaks volumes to the kind of person Wisnewski is. It’s also an important reminder to take mental health issues as seriously as physical health issues.

The care and respect that has been shown by and to Wisnewski and the Nix has been mirrored in the media and can only help normalise mental health issues and make them more freely spoken about.

Even if the Phoenix do not get a win this season, Wisnewski’s decision to put herself first will be worth more than three points.

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