Michael’s Minute
Today I welcome Tracy and her Auckland Football team to Gower Park in my first posting as Head Coach of the WaiBOP National Women’s League team. This ground has be kind to me over the past two seasons and today I am hoping for some of that success to rub off on this team. To all the people who have helped setting up the pitch and club today, I appreciate your support. Gower Park is a very special ground and to host this game on it in a new and exciting double round campaign is a great opportunity for us to start rebuilding this region’s intentions in Women’s Football. I was appointed as coach roughly eight weeks ago, and in that time I have only managed to work with this group a handful of times due to horrendous weather, pitch unavailability, players still involved in winter league competitions, the list
could go on. This has been a major challenge for the group in the short space of time that I have had contact with them but their attitude has been fantastic and they are starting to understand the expectations and standards of working at this level if they want to be successful. This team is shy of genuine senior experience, but there is no lack of youthful tenacity and energy. I am looking forward to seeing some of the progress we can make as a group. Admittedly, seeing that our first two games of the campaign are against last year’s finalists was probably the worst draw I could have hoped for in my first outing as coach in this league but in saying that, it will give our group a very realistic view of where we are at in these early stages. Auckland are littered with experience and I am well aware of some of their key strengths after working with a few of them over the years when involved in the NZF set up. It is going to be a very competitive game on a very good surface and I expect both teams to try and impose themselves on each other. Hopefully this will lead to some exciting action and a few goals for the supporters to enjoy. To all our supporters and sponsors, thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you get behind us over the course of this campaign.