We catch up with some of the coaching staff in the ISPS Handa Women's Premiership to get their reflections on their teams' results and performances in Matchweek 1.

31 October 

Southern United 1 (Samantha Murrell 90+1’)

Canterbury United Pride (OG 21’; Lara Wall 61’; Britney-lee Nicholson 71’, 83’)

Yellow cards: Kate Taylor 85’ (Canterbury United Pride)

HT: 0-1

Ignacio Sande, Southern United head coach
“We’re disappointed with the score and with the result, but we take lots of positive things from, from the game and lots of learnings. And as you say first game, we need to learn from, I guess, from the mistakes we make and, and things that we can improve. But I’m so happy with the attitude from the team, they give everything they have and they keep fighting to the last minute so that we have few chances there with one-on-one with Amy [Hislop]. So I’m happy to see a team that keeps fighting on no matter what the score is.”

1 November

Northern Lights 1 (Chloe Knott 41’)

Capital Football 1 (Kaley Ward 89’)

HT: 1-0

Ben Bate, Northern Lights head coach:

“It was a little bit frustrating. I lost count of the amount of opportunities we had in the final third, so it was really frustrating that we just couldn't convert those opportunities. Capital defended really well for the most part, but we were still able to create heaps of opportunities – and creating heaps of chances is a positive. Hopefully when we come into the next game with a few more trainings under our belt and having worked on combinations in training, they’ll turn into goals next time we’re out on the pitch.

“So it’s fair to say that the team is ready to rectify this. If we didn't have the bye next week, I think we probably would have been a nightmare for whoever we were playing.”

1 November

Auckland Football 9 (Rina Hirano 4’, 21’; Arisa Takeda 11’; Casey Berrier 12’, Paige Satchell 40’; Ava Collins 45+2’, Maisy Dewell 62’, Lizzie Anton 70’; Ella Russ 90+2’)

Central Football 1 (Georgie Furnell 90+1’)

HT: 6-0

Yellow cards: Ava Collins 17’ (Auckland Football); Jana Niedermayr 28’, 45+1’ (Central Football)

Red cards: Jana Niedermayr 45+1’ (Central Football)

Aaron McFarland, Auckland Football head coach:

“We're definitely happy with the result. With the first game when there's really little known about the opposition there is always that little bit of anxiety around your preparation. So we’re definitely happy with the result and getting nine goals. For the performance – and I think the players would agree with me – there's things that we certainly need to work on in terms of our tempo and winning the ball back, so there’s a number of things here that we'll be working on this week to make sure we’re prepared for next week.”

Kate Bennett, Central Football assistant coach:

“Obviously we’re a bit disappointed with the first half and then obviously to lose Jana as well, to go down to ten players at the break there wasn't ideal, but we can’t really do much about that. We were a lot happier with how the team performed in the second half. They came out a lot stronger, obviously got the goal and were a lot more structured, so I was happy with how they responded.”

Article added: Tuesday 03 November 2020