By Dongyun Kwon
Healesville Soccer Club has proved how strong a sports culture for women and girls has settled into the town.
Two teams of the club, Healesville Senior Women and U15 Flames brought two more trophies to their clubhouse.
The Healesville Senior Women confirmed the title of Victorian Churches Football Association Womens Division 1 at the end of Round 19 with two more rounds left.
Coach Steve Campbell said it was a fantastic feeling and achievement for the club.
“They [the players] progressively got better as the season went on, and it’s been a real delight in watching that growth of the players and the adoption of the younger players coming through,” he said.
“They had a really strong presence of training with good attendance.
“They trusted everybody would do their job and that’s a big part of the team, they were great friends, they had a great attitude, they were always keen to learn more and put those learnings into practice.”
Campbell officially took over the coaching position in the middle of the season but he has been engaged in the team by giving some ideas during the whole season as his wife and sister-in-law played for the team.
The team wrapped up the season with the result of 17 wins, two draws and two losses out of 21 rounds.
Campbell said the challenge was all about finessing some of the finer details and setting a standard that could carry them into the next division for next year.
“We really started to think about ‘how do we become solid defensively?’, ‘how do we grow up to do possession on the ball and go on the attack?’,” he said.
“It was then looking at multiple ways to peel the orange.
“Another strategy was introducing new positions around the pitch so that we could change freely within a game, depending on the requirements.”
The team had about 15 regular players throughout the season, including some juniors as young as 13 years old.
The coach said the strong futsal culture in the town also contributed to the team’s strength.
“We have an adult social league and we have 220 to 230 kids playing futsal in Healesville, so we have some players who came to the club through the futsal league as well,” Campbell said.
“They had a nice mix of fitness, touch and preparation outdoor, and they had that mix of that fast and furious indoor game to prepare.”
The mid-30s and late 30s with full of experience took charge of the defensive line while two captains with teenage girls took the midfield and upfront lines with the harmony of creativity and calmness.
As the team started to win more, they got more nervous to secure the lead.
As a result, the chemistry of the team kept growing with the aspiration towards winning.
It also positively affected the energy during the Wednesday night training sessions.
“We would train one night a week at Don Road, Healesville, we’d normally put in a 90 to 120 minute session and that would be focusing on possession, touch, shooting and fun games,” Campbell said.
“Both Healesville Seniors Women and Healesville Women Reds [another women’s team] trained together and that helped the club environment of women’s teams.”
Healesville won the first five games, scoring 37 goals and conceding one.
Kiera S scored 10 of the goals.
The first major challenge for Healesville was to face the recently relegated Maroondah United.
It was the first live-streamed game and the Healesville team had a lot of chances but was disappointed not to take one and get the win.
The team had to accept their first draw of the season.
“It was a day of missed chances, it was one of those ones where the girls were frustrated at the chances created,” the coach said.
After the draw, the team ran undefeated until round 14 when a determined Bayswater took 3-2 winning.
Campbell said the Bayswater challenge was a little bit different.
“When you start to lead the league as the top team, everybody wants to beat you,” he said.
“There were plenty of games where we felt the team we were playing against was giving everything as hard as possible.
“That was a great challenge for the girls to understand their limitations and how to manage the emotion within a game.”
Despite the loss, the coach wasn’t disappointed in his team as they kept the playing style they had set.
“The Bayswater was a very good team and they play a very different style than what we play,” Campbell said.
“On the day we lost, Bayswater took their chances and again we missed a lot of chances.”
The team scored 102 goals and conceded 18 goals with 11 clean sheets during the season.
The team has talents that are good at different styles and techniques which enabled them to adapt either 4-4-1-1, 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 formations depending on their opponents.
Campbell said his team focused on working as a unit in both attack and defence.
“We scored over 100 goals for the season, so we were always very good at getting into attacking positions, 1 vs 1 or turning defences around,” he said.
“One of the tests we wanted to do was ‘how do we get the ball through or get the ball crossed where we’re making the defence face their own goal’.
“It was a little bit of a change from keeping possession or trying to dribble forward to letting the ball do the work.
“We only conceded maybe 18 goals for the year, I’m really happy with that.”
The top Scorers of the team were Kiera S with 22 goals and Tess N with 14 goals.
Sarah C was awarded third place in Best and Fairest in the league.
Star Mail will continue this article introducing the story of the U15 Flames next week.
