Every great season keeps one result it would rather forget. For the Redbacks women, that result wears Brunswick Juventus colours, and Friday night is the rematch.
Eltham travel to CB Smith Reserve top of VPL Women on 40 points, seven clear of Bundoora United after last Friday’s statement 4-2 win over the second-placed side ended their unbeaten season at The Web. Isobel Berks struck twice inside 20 minutes that night, Paige Foa and Ally Giovino finished the job, and the league’s runaway top scorer went home without a goal. One defeat all season, a goal difference of plus 36 that nobody can approach, and five matches left to bring it home. The form line could hardly read better.
Which is exactly why Friday matters. That one defeat came against this opponent, a 6-3 loss at The Web back in April that remains the only time all season anyone has truly opened Eltham up. Juventus sit fourth on 31 points with two games in hand on the leaders, and while the title is realistically beyond them, they are the one side in the division holding proof they can beat this Redbacks team. They have won away at Manningham 3-2 this month and ground out a 0-0 at Bayside, and a defence that has conceded 21 goals in 16 games is among the meanest in the league. This will not be a night for pretty football.
The tactical shape of it is easy to see coming. April’s meeting turned into a shootout that suited the visitors, so the lesson is control rather than chaos. Berks arrives as the form player of the competition, Foa and Giovino have goals in them every week, and an Eltham side that has scored 66 times does not need the game stretched to find the net. Keep the contest on Eltham’s terms, and the quality gap the ladder describes should tell.
A win on the road, against the only team to lay a glove on this season, would be the emphatic answer to the last question anyone can ask of this group before the run home. Kick-off is 8:30pm Friday at CB Smith Reserve.
Up the ‘Backs.