Boroondara will play no further part in the 2014 Women’s State Knockout Cup, suffering a shock 2-1 loss to State league 1 side Melbourne University on Sunday.
The Eagles, fielding many fringe players for the fixture, could not contain Melbourne’s Keryn Walters, whose brace either side of Emma Hubbard’s equaliser propelled the visitors into the quarter finals.
Boroondara technical director and acting head coach, Manny Koutroulis, downplayed his side’s loss, crediting the visitors for a deserved victory.
“Today we played an exceptional opponent, who have an exceptional record in this competition,” Koutroulis said.
“We tried a few squad players today, we wanted to give them an opportunity, so I just think we were beaten by a better opponent today, who’ve had an exceptional season.
“When we were in State One last year I felt that we could knock off many Premier League sides, and I believe they came here with that belief, and that same confidence that we had last season.”
However, the Eagles’ mentor denied the suggestion that the Cup competition was a secondary priority for the newly promoted WPL club, who are already in third place on the league ladder.
“We play every game to win, I haven’t been at a game not wanting to win,” he said.
“We went to Surf Coast FC with a strong enough lineup and got a result there, and today we came here to win.
“It was an opportunity to give some others players a game, players that have been knocking on the door, so we decided that we’d go down that path, but we certainly wanted to advance.”
Koutroulis was most complementary towards Hannah Ryan and Kim Shannon, along with goalkeeper Alex Polkington, who have all struggled to see meaningful first-team action so far this season.
“We gave a debut to Hannah Ryan, who is a young girl from South Melbourne, she did really well and showed glimpses of being a [big] player for us, and Kim Shannon at one stage was given a role which she did well at an important stage of the game,” he said.
“They’re probably two that I can single out, and I can’t fault our goalkeeper Alex Polkington, who is a very good goalkeeper, and has been very unlucky not to play due to the form of Anna Lanning.”
Sitting just two points shy of league leader Bulleen, and on equal points with second placed South Melbourne who have a game in hand, Boroondara now turn their focus towards next week’s local derby against the former.
“It’s a big game [against Bulleen], every game is a big game for the newcomers in Premier League, we’ve been doing well thus far and we want to continue to do well,” he said.
“For our club it was a big game to go to Box Hill, we were very happy to win that, the next game is ever bigger.
“They [Bulleen] are our neighbors, we are only a couple of kilometres apart, and they are a big name club, so we look forward to playing them and seeing if we can get a result there as well.”