A huge thanks to Jellis Craig North East for presenting this weekend’s match report.
Six rounds without a loss had given the Redbacks Women a starting point worth defending. Brunswick Juventus arrived at The Web on Saturday afternoon as one of the few teams in VPL Women still capable of saying the same. Both unbeaten runs were on the line. Only one survived.
Nicole Cooper’s hat-trick was the difference. The Brunswick striker scored inside seven minutes, doubled her tally on 14, and completed the treble on 68, by which point the visitors led 5-1 and the question had moved from result to margin. Eltham finished on the wrong side of a 6-3 scoreline that ended the unbeaten start and reset the season’s framing in a single afternoon.
The Redbacks had answered the opening goal as quickly as a side could hope to. Paige Foa equalised within a minute of Cooper’s first, and for a brief stretch the contest looked like settling into the kind of high-tempo exchange the women have managed against the better sides in this competition. Cooper’s second on the quarter-hour and Jaeda Centeno’s strike on 31 minutes restructured the afternoon entirely. Half time arrived with the Redbacks 1-3 down and the response required.
Five changes at the break signalled the urgency from coach Jonathan Barrientos. The reset didn’t immediately produce the intended return. Centeno added her second on 54 minutes for 1-4, and Cooper completed her hat-trick on 68 to push Brunswick out to a four-goal lead. Isobel Berks pulled one back within a minute, and after Holly Boldiston extended the visitors’ margin to 6-2 on 72, Claudia Dimasi struck for the third Eltham goal on 79.
Three goals scored at home and six conceded is not the report card the Redbacks Women expected to take from a fixture between two unbeaten teams, and there is no version of this evening where six goals at The Web is anything other than a difficult afternoon. The character that produced two goals from a 1-5 deficit, however, is not nothing. Foa, Berks and Dimasi all found the net, and the squad kept pushing through to the final whistle.
Round 8 takes the women to Southern United away on Saturday.