Evado Studios Women’s Match Report: The Hard Way

Title runs are not always built on the afternoons when everything clicks. Sometimes they are built on the ones where nothing does, and you win anyway.

At Cross Keys Reserve on Saturday the Royals women did it the hard way, falling behind inside ten minutes and then spending the rest of the afternoon wrestling the game back. They got there, a 2-1 win that keeps Jaiden van der Heijden’s side on top of the NPLW, and they got there the way good teams do, by refusing to panic when the plan went sideways early.

Spring Hills arrived as heavy underdogs and played like a side that knew it, sitting deep, packing the box and trusting goalkeeper Jenna Ibrahim to deal with whatever came through. For long stretches the plan worked, and it was handed an early boost when the visitors took a lead few in the ground saw coming. Sinclair’s effort in the tenth minute forced a save from Sophie Dehne, the rebound spilled back into a crowded six-yard box, and Spring Hills pounced to punish the one half-chance their afternoon would offer.

The response was measured rather than frantic. Sixteen minutes later the Royals were level, and the goal carried the hallmarks of their best work this season. Cobi Wilbert won the ball in midfield and fed Akeisha Sandhu, the move worked its way to Kelli McGroarty, and the striker did what she has done all year, finding her half-yard of space and finishing without fuss. It was her nineteenth goal of the campaign, enough to edge her clear at the top of the golden boot race, the prize she had only drawn level in a week earlier.

From there it became a question of patience. The Royals owned the ball and the territory for the remainder of the contest, and on another day the margin would have been comfortable long before the finish. Ibrahim had other ideas, denying Grace Maher and McGroarty with a string of fine saves, and twice the woodwork came to the visitors’ rescue as McGroarty went close. The chances kept coming, the goal would not, and the longer it stayed level the more the deep-lying Spring Hills plan looked like it might just steal a point.

So van der Heijden went to his bench, sending on Ava Groba and Isabella Sewards in search of a breakthrough, and the change told with ten minutes to play. Sewards worked the ball into a dangerous area, the delivery caused chaos in the Spring Hills box, and as bodies converged it was Groba who reacted quickest, bundling the loose ball over the line for the goal that settled it. There was nothing pretty about it, but in a game shaped like this one, pretty was never going to be the thing that won it.

The three points keep the Royals top of the NPLW on thirty-five points from sixteen games, two clear of South Melbourne and three ahead of Bulleen, the two sides keeping the pressure on at the business end. There will be prettier wins than this one, afternoons where the four and five goal hauls return, but few will matter more than the day they went behind to the side sitting tenth and still found a way.

That is what the best teams do, and right now the Royals are doing it.