Galaxy United midfielder Adriana Taranto has declared the club want to ‘make history’ in the first edition of the NPLW Victoria, having claimed a second straight victory to start their campaign, this time against Bayside United.
While they were forced to hold on in the end to a 2-1 scoreline, the playmaker – coming off a full season with Melbourne Victory W-League duties – admitted that the team was coming together well, which is aiding in their campaign to make 2016 a memorable one for the club in its inaugural season.
“It’s getting better as we’re training but we started pre-season in December, so everyone’s really gelled well,” Taranto said.
“We’ve had team camps and all that sort of stuff and I know a couple of the girls as I’ve played with them before but the ones I don’t know, I feel like I’ve known forever. We’re getting used to each other playing wise but I think we’ve gelled really well together.
“We went into [the season saying] ‘making history’ so we wanted to start strong and show the other teams that we’re here and serious.
“It’s been a perfect start to the season.”
Taranto opened the scoring in fine fashion on the half-hour mark, with a solo run through the middle of the park, before dispatching well into the bottom.
“I think we just caught them out. The ball dropped to me, I saw the goal and I thought we needed a bit of a lift,” she said.
“Whenever you’re in front of goal, that’s all you do is shoot, so it went in the back of the net and lifted us.”
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The sealing goal came courtesy of youngster Caitlin Pickett, who converted at the back post with a header on her top-flight debut.
“As a youngster coming on and scoring on with the senior team is the best feeling ever. She killed it tonight, the pressure she puts on the ball is really good.”
It was to a sign of relief from the Galaxy bench, who’d just minutes earlier seen Bayside strike the post through Emma Robers.
They eventually got reward for their energetic display, hitting the back of the net through Bronte James in the dying embers of the game.
Taranto has underlined a 90 minute performance as something that her team needs to improve on next week, with the late goal to Bayside creating a nervy final few moments.
Bronte James scores the first goal of the season against Galax…In the words of one of our spectators last night, the seniors’ game against Galaxy was “engrossing” with Bayside going down to Galaxy 1:2, under coach Graham Dudley. Our inaugural Senior goal scorer was Bronte James, as shown in this video clip. Well done to Bronte!
Posted by Bayside United Football Club – WNPL on Sunday, 13 March 2016
“I was asking the ref every second ‘Is it over?’ She’s said ‘Yeah in a minute.’ It felt like the longest minute as Bayside kept pressing until the end,” she said.
“It did get a little bit scrappy towards the end which is something I think we need to fix up, but a lot of pressure in the end but we got through. We needed that [second] goal – but credit to them for keeping the pressure up.”
“I think playing the whole 90 and keeping the quality up [is something we need to aim to do] – as you saw towards the end it got a little bit scrappy.
“I think fixing that up and the speed of the play, keeping the ball a bit more [we can work on]. We were playing three in the middle when they had four in the middle.
“That pressure was a little bit tough but I think we adjusted well and came out in the second half, we changed to a three at the back and adapted to that.
“Looking forward, we’ll just have to play our way and I think we’ve got Calder next, so that’ll be a tough one. But we just go back to training and do our recovery and set ourselves up well to play them.”
Photo: Galaxy United