The Round 2 Forecast
Welcome to the Friday forecast for Week 2 of the MyState Bank Women’s Super League season. The opening weekend saw no shortage of action, with some close games and wonderful individual performances getting us started in style. We have our first impressions of sides, but one week is nowhere near enough sample size to get an adequate read on the teams just yet. Overreacting to week 1 seldom tends to end well after all.
Round 2 will get underway on Saturday with Devonport and South Hobart keen to put their best foot forward as title contenders, before Taroona take on the Clarence Zebras with both sides looking for their first points of the new season. On the Sunday Launceston United will play their home opener against the Lions and the defending champions should remain on top of the table at the end of the round barring any major shocks.
Big Guns Avoid Each Other In Cup Draw
After the opening weekend action it was onto the first Cup draw of the year with the Round of 16 of the Women’s Statewide Cup being drawn out. With 12 teams entered in, it meant 4 games would be drawn for that stage and 4 sides would receive byes through to the Quarter Finals. With the byes not being seeded, there was every chance of the big guns clashing early and opening up a section of the draw for a lower division side, but the WSL sides all successfully avoided each other, if not road trips. Devonport, Clarence Zebras, Launceston United will all hit the road and travel whilst Kingborough has a home tie against University. South Hobart and Taroona were the winners from the WSL as they were both drawn byes and so already have the Quarter Final tickets punched.
Women’s Statewide Cup draw
Riverside Olympic v Devonport Strikers
Launceston City v Clarence Zebras
Kingborough Lions v UTAS Football
Burnie United v Launceston United
Byes : South Hobart, New Town White Eagles, Taroona and Ulverstone
Early Clash of Contenders at Darcy Street
The Round gets underway with a massive clash between South Hobart and the Devonport Strikers at Darcy Street. Both sides won in Round 1 to start their season's off in the best possible manner and both will be hoping it's a first step on a larger journey towards a league title. Having finished second and third last season, these two sides harbour legitimate title ambitions and so any time they meet the stakes are going to be high. It might only be week 2 in a 20 Round season, but ensuring you not only get 3 points yourself, but a key title rival doesn’t on any given weekend is always going to be extra important.
The two sides have faced a common opponent in the past fortnight in the form of Clarence Zebras and the close nature of both those fixtures suggests there isn’t much between the pair at the moment and this should be a very tight game.
If South Hobart are to get the three points, then they will need to sharpen up in the final third as both the Summer Cup Final and their Round 1 victory over Kingborough has seen them lacking a clinical edge. Their movement, passing and general control of the midfield has been exemplary, but they have broken down in their penalty area just a little too often, not turning dangerous attacking moments into clear cut scoring chances. They have so many lovely passages of play that ultimately fizz out, but if they can sharpen up a little in the final third then this side has the potential to be a fairly free scoring one, as there is no shortage of attacking skill in the side.
The Strikers meanwhile will want to tighten up at the back, where they gave a bit too much space to Clarence Zebras attackers in the first half last weekend. Whilst they got stronger as the game wore on, they did offer up a few too many good goal scoring looks in that first half. Against a South Hobart side with some quick footed attackers, they will want to cut down on the space they afford them.
A potential Bridie Cooling v Jazmin White looms here and if it eventuats that matchup could go a long way to deciding this game. Cooling is one of the few defenders in the competition with the leg speed to curtail the electric White and if South can stop the Strikers star scorer, it will up their chances significantly.
The Strikers are highly fancied to make a title charge this season- Solstice Photography
Pirates and Zebras Look Kick Start Their Season
Elsewhere on Saturday, Taroona FC and the Clarence Zebras will be looking to claim their first points of the season when they meet at Kelvedon Park. With both sides suffering defeats in Round 1, neither will fancy starting 0-2 to begin the campaign firmly behind the eight ball.
The Zebras will be hot favourites for this one though and they should be able to get their season off the mark if they turn in the level of performance they have over the past fortnight. Their Summer Cup victory over South Hobart showed a great fighting spirit whilst last week’s narrow defeat to Devonport was a highly credible performance. They were overrun as the game wore on, but for the first 45 minutes in particular they showed they should be mixing it with the best again this year despite losing some experienced heads over the offseason.
Taroona dug in for a period against Launceston United last week but ultimately found themselves blown away as the game wore on and United put the hammer down late on. Izzy Ottavi made some top class saves to limit the damage, but they didn’t create many problems for United back the other way and this game will likely follow a similar script unless their midfield can get stuck in and make it a more even battle in the engine room. United dominated this area of the park, so it’s imperative the Pirates win their share of the ball and give the defence a breather, as they were under constant siege last weekend.
Champions Return Home
In Sunday Super League action, Launceston United return to Birch Avenue for their home opener as they take on the Kingborough Lions.
United’s title defence got off to a strong start last weekend against Taroona with a comfortable 5-0 win and they will be expected to take care of business once again at home to the Lions here.
The front three of Gunton, Marten and Smith combined nicely against the Pirates and with creative players such as Gilpin and Lohse feeding them, this looks like a side setup to score plenty of goals just as they did en route to the league title last season. It’s a group that will seriously test any defensive unit that comes up against them and it will take a big effort from the Lions back four to contain them.
That said, I thought the Lions defence stood up quite well under intense pressure from South Hobart last week. It’s been the area of their game that has consistently held them back in the past couple of seasons, but despite spending much of the game on the back foot, they kept South to just the single goal. Mackintosh was rock solid between the sticks and the likes of DeSmit, Segger and Lashmar did a good job shielding the dangerous areas. They will need to be just as good this week, if not better if they are to cause a boilover and prevent the Champions from starting their title defence with a pair of wins.
MyState Bank Women’s Super League
Round 2
Saturday 25th March
South Hobart v Devonport Strikers, 2:00pm
Taroona v Clarence Zebras, 2:30pm
Sunday 26 March
Launceston United v Kingborough Lions, 2:00pm