After a self declared disappointing loss to the NTC Girls in Round 12, expectations were low for an out of sorts Sandringham in the lead up to their clash against the in-form Bundoora United.
One scintillating game of football later, and Sandy had four goals and a clean sheet to go along with their best performance of the year, and it had stand-in coach Deb Nichols astounded.
“Considering the performance last week against the NTC, I don’t think Bundy were expecting that and to a certain degree I don’t think I was expecting it either,” Nichols said after a frantic 90 minutes.
“Definitely the best performance of the year by a mile.”
The game was won in the midfield, and despite missing the influential Hannah Stuart, the central three of the home side overpowered United’s trio; something that Nichols believes went a long way towards the three points.
“The loss of Hannah Stuart made the guys in midfield go ‘well someone’s got to do this’ and everyone in the midfield tonight absolutely put in,” she said.
“The work rate was just terrific and that’s been the difference from previous games, they’ve just worked really hard.
“I gave [Steph] Tanti a bit of a different role tonight and she executed it really well. She showed that when she wants to, she can go box-to-box and she can contribute.
“It was noticeable with [Annabelle] Gibney and Sienna Fogarty also working hard in there, in that middle section of midfield. We actually dominated the midfield so it was pleasing.”
Despite it proving to be the key area of the night, Nichols conceded she didn’t focus on nullifying the opponents influence in midfield, rather she chose to focus on her own side’s performance.
“We really didn’t think about how to counteract Bundy because we had enough of our own problems,” the head coach said.
“It was more in those games that we haven’t done well, you’ve virtually been able to drive a truck through the centre of our midfield so it was more about ‘can we tighten up the centre of midfield’ and then build from that and tonight it worked.
“The position we’re in in the league we just need to not look at the other teams and just pick up points. [We work on] how we can be better, not ‘how can we counteract another side’?
“It’s more getting our bit right and we can move on from there.”