By Luke Sheehan
ALTONA City pulled itself off the bottom of the women’s Premier League ladder with a 1-0 win against South Melbourne on Sunday.
A goal to Kerri Little gifted the City side its first win since its meteoric rise through the divisions in women’s soccer.
The side had spent a lot of time on the bottom rungs on the ladder this season, a rare position for the side which has been so used to winning in recent years.
City rose from the under 15 division in 2005 in Football Federation Victoria’s competition when they topped their league and were promoted to north-west under 16 in 2006, and kept rising though the ranks to reach the Premier League, where they have lost their opening four games.
Coach Paul Kilpatrick said despite the side’s successful run to the Premier League, it was going to be a tough initiation up against high-quality opposition.
“I always thought it would probably take us four to six games to get used to the pace of Premier League because it’s such a big step from first division to Premier League.
“It’s massive, given that we’ve got a fairly young squad who aren’t as developed physically and mentally as some of the players they’re playing against.”
Kilpatrick said playing the powerhouse of the Premier League was mission impossible for his youthful squad.
“We played Box Hill the other week, they had the Australian captain and had five Melbourne victory squad players and the rest were either VIS or Victorian players.
“The average height would have been about close to six feet and my girls are nowhere near that, it was David versus Goliath, but Goliath won.”
The evenness of the competition was in doubt according to Kilpatrick, as teams like Box Hill were able to play as many representative players as it wants.
“I think they’ve (Box Hill) played in the last seven or eight grand finals, which says a lot about them. Its certainly a learning experience.
“I guess one of the most unfortunate parts of the way the Premier League is set up is the spread of VIS or AIS players, its not spread evenly over the competition.”
Kilpatrick said the errors around the ball have cost the maroon and gold a chance to secure their first points for the season.
“The main problem that we’ve had is that we’ve been making silly mistakes, and at that level you get punished for them.
“In division one, if you make a mistake you’ve normally got time to recover, but when you’re playing against people that represent their country or state, the ball ends up in the back of the net.”
A home-grown midfielder is returning to Australia from the United States and will be running out for City in the next month, and will hopefully help get the winning feeling back for the team.
“We have a girl coming from America who’s actually Australian, Amy Jackson, she played for the Australian under 21 team and is coming in about three weeks time.
“Hopefully, her entry into the squad mixed with a bit more game time against the better team, we’ll hopefully start producing better results.”
