Welcome to the Friday Forecast ahead of Round 20 of the MyState Bank Women’s Super League season. We reach the final day of the regular season with the final table locked into place, with no side able to move up or down on the league table in Saturday's action. Awards have been won and lost on final days before though, so players will want to put their best foot forward one final time before the celebrations to follow at the annual awards ceremony that evening. So let's take a look at the final set of WSL matches for 2023, and reflect on each of the season’s that the sides have put together as we go.
Top Two Meet at Darcy Street
We will start at Darcy Street where we have a top-of-the-table clash between Devonport and South Hobart. In an alternative timeline perhaps, this would be a final-day thriller set to decide the title, but in this one South Hobart have been utterly dominant all season and they enter the clash sitting 14 points clear of the Strikers. It’s been a relentless campaign from South, who have won their maiden title at a canter and now look to wrap things up by completing an unbeaten season.
South Hobart have been the dominant side in the league all season, controlling games and shutting out opponents with ruthless efficiency. The old adage is that defence wins titles, and defence has been where so much of their success has come from this year. They went over 1000 minutes of WSL play without conceding a goal, which is a defensive record that may well never be broken. With Bridie Cooling anchoring the defence and Jenna Farrow a rock in goals behind her, they've just proved so hard to break down all season long.
Then there is the midfield maestros in Choi and Roberts who have both starred this season. For mine, this pair have simply been the best two players in the competition in 2023, complementing each other's skillsets perfectly in the South engine room. Jazmin White, who will also feature in this match for Devonport, looms as the other major awards threat to that duo in my mind, as she has scored goals for fun all year.
Devonport will go down as the best of the rest, but they never really pushed for the title themselves after dropping some road games earlier in the season that left them too far behind a South side that simply wouldn’t relent. After a third-place finish last season, it's another step in the right direction for the Strikers and they will be out to improve one more place again next season. They are starting to build a very solid program up at the Portress and they are going to be a major chance in the finals series, where there is a high chance that these two sides will meet again in a fortnight times.
Lions Conclude Campaign Hosting 2022 Champions
At Lightwood Park the fifth-placed Kingborough Lions season comes to and end, as they take on third-placed Launceston United.
The Lions will be eager to end what has been a difficult season with a victory. They enter the final day on the back of seven consecutive defeats as their 5-0-7 record has slumped to 5-0-14. A top-four finish would’ve been the expectation heading into the season, and indeed from midway through it, when they appeared well on track for it. It’s been a familiar problem for the Lions in 2023, they simply leak too many goals. They’ve played some lovely eye-catching football at times and have some quality goal scorers, but they need to find a way to make themselves tougher to score on if they are to improve on the fifth-place finishes of the past two seasons in 2024.
United put up a strong defence of their title in the first half of the year, but ultimately falted post Statewide Cup final day. The week before the Cup final, they played out a thrilling 0-0 draw at Darcy Street against South Hobart. It seemed to suggest the sides were going to be tightly matched in the title race down the stretch, but whilst South stormed on, buoyed by the Cup victory, United have taken just 13 points from their past 10 games, after earning 19 from their first 9. They still have the chance to salvage something from the year in the upcoming finals series, but that will require their attack to start firing again. In recent clashes against the Strikers and South Hobart they struggled to create much, so they will be looking to get back into goalscoring touch by finding the back of the Lions net here. If they can win this one, then they will head into finals stringing consecutive wins, after a brilliant brace from Ange Ikelda fired them to a 2-0 win over the Clarence Zebras midweek.
Pirates Look To End On A High Against Zebras
Finally, we head to Kelvedon Park where Taroona FC end their 2023 season against the Clarence Zebras. Taroona will be looking to end their season on a high and continue their strong end to the season, whilst the Zebras have an upcoming Semi Final against South Hobart to tune up for.
Taroona's season has been one of tangible improvements and can be split into three pretty distinct periods. Early struggles from Rounds 1-7, honourable losses in Rounds 8-14 and then positive results in Rounds 14-20.
After the first 7 weeks, they were pointless, had a goal differential of -39 and things were looking pretty grim. Then they began to turn a corner and from Round 8-14 there was a noted improvement, and whilst they only claimed a point from those seven matches, they were now far more competitive in games and weren't being blown out. Then the final third of the season saw the arrival of Jessie Williams who has played some inspired football and helped them claim 7 points in their past five games, including their first two wins of the year over the Lions. They've done well to come through the tough times and are now getting some rewards for it, and a final-day win would complete a very successful second half of the season.
The Zebras meanwhile have done well to secure a top-four finish which would’ve been the aim heading into the season. The youthful Zebras aren’t ready to be pushing for silverware just yet but a drop-off was probably expected given some of the departures over the offseason, so they'll be happy to hold their spot in the top four. Those departures provided opportunities to promising young talents like Graciella Baez who looks a genuine star of the future and this was very much a season of blooding those future players.
Round 20
Saturday 9 September
Kingborough v Launceston United, 12:00pm, Lightwood Park
South Hobart v Devonport Strikers, 12:15pm, Darcy Street
Taroona v Clarence Zebras, 12:30pm, Kelvedon Park