A surprisingly competitive Monbulk outfit faced up against reigning champions Sandringham SC on Monday night, and despite losing 3-1, they made a good account of themselves whilst breaking an unwanted record of six games without a goal.
Although her effort was officially recorded as an own goal, Bella Carter-Madej applied the pressure and touch that saw Sandy full-back Kristen Stensholdt put the ball into the wrong net.
Quite the wait for Monbulk and the striker was undoubtedly pleased with the drought breaking goal.
“It’s been quite a while since we’ve scored so it feels so good,” Carter-Madej said.
“This happens so much, we try so hard and we play so well but we just can’t sink the goals, but it feels so good when we do, but we just need to try and score more goals.”
Carter-Madej – making her first appearance in some time – admitted it was a tough task especially in the cold conditions in which “a lot of running” was needed to stay warm.
“It feels good [to be back], stretching out and striding out feels so good,” she said.
“I haven’t really been playing much for the season – this is my first game in a few months.
“I haven’t been training, I’ve been working so much so I’m a bit unfit at the moment so I’ll need to work on that a little bit.”
In respect to the team performance, Carter-Madej was happy with the attitude and approach of her teammates but conceded that it was a failure to close down in the second half which resulted in Sandringham’s two goals from distance.
“That’s what we do every game, we treat it like training and we go hard. We do everything the same, go at everything hard and just try our best.
“[The goals] were just a bit of not concentrating with the defence, just leaving those players at the top [of the box] but that always happens.
“You always make small mistakes but otherwise we did really well.”