It’s just your average week in the South Melbourne camp, should you take the word of coach Socrates Nicolaidis and player Natalie Martineau, who have insisted their build up to the Women’s Premier League Grand Final will remain similar to any other game.
Having booked their spot in Sunday afternoon’s decided with a convincing 3-0 triumph over Ashburton United, Nicolaidis revealed that the focus was on winning the game in 90 minutes, just like any other game.
“I think the test is whether we can [continue our form] against the best team, with the best players, the most goals scored and most wins,” Nicolaidis said.
“They’re super confident so our challenge is, ‘can we win a one off game?’ We’ll go through the same process [throughout the week] as usual.
“The challenge that we have now is that there’s girls training with Melbourne Victory, so those two or three girls going in will be a lot more fatigued. They’ve been given the day off [on Thursday, after Victory training] to get their legs a little bit fresher.
“We’ll focus on doing our conditioning on Tuesday and then focus on winning the game of 90 minutes. I don’t want to put in their head that they’re playing [an extra] two 15 minutes and then we pick five players.”
Looking at the season as a whole, Nicolaidis took a philosophical view on their season’s achievements, believing although 2015 was signed off as a transition year, they still harboured big time ambitions in terms of results.
“It is a transition year and we all talked about that but I was challenged this year as to whether I should give them the goals [that I had set them] or whether I should hold them and then at the end of the year show it to them,” Nicolaidis explained.
“[But] we talk about playing the last game of the season, we’ve accomplished that. We talked about winning the most games in the league [equal most with 15], scoring the most goals [third most in the league with 68] and conceding the least – we’re nowhere near that.
“So we’ve ticked off a few things but what I asked of them is that [when comparing] the last game of the season to the first, I want to see improvement, because I feel it’s the responsibility of the coach to make sure the players get better at the things you want and the type of football we want to play.
“If we want to raise the standard, then we need to raise our game, play faster, work faster, move more intelligently and I think they’re starting to do that.
One of those players, – utility Nat Martineau who’s in line to win her second WPL crown – paid testament to the backroom staff of the club that has made her journey in Australia such a special experience.
“It was my first club when I got here, which was two and a half years ago, and I’m here basically for the president, which is Gabrielle [Giuliano]. She’s been an amazing supporter of me and all that I’ve done”
“It’d mean a lot for the club, for the president, for everyone that’s put so much effort into this season and even last season so it’d mean the world to us to go back-to-back.
The Canadian, who has thrived in a fullback role for South Melbourne for the majority of the 2015 season believed the past results against the Eagles will count for nothing in the one-off fixture, with the key to success keeping it tight in defence.
“I know we’ve struggled the past two games we’ve played them, but I think we’ll give them a run for their money this game,” Martineau said mid-week.
“From our point of view, we just need to prevent any goals. That’s been our biggest weakness against Boroondara, that we’ve let them shoot and score. So no goals against and we need to take our shots and score.
“I think he’ll [Soc] try not to change anything, but I’m sure he’ll send us an inspiring message the night before.”