{"id":54140,"date":"2026-07-20T04:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/54140\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T04:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T04:42:08","slug":"nplw-coaches-notes-victory-claim-crucial-point-at-lakeside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/54140\/","title":{"rendered":"NPLW Coaches Notes: Victory claim crucial point at Lakeside"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melbourne Victory could not close the gap on Boroondara Eagles FC in the race for the Senol NPL Victoria Women Finals, losing the Round 21 meeting 4-2.<\/p>\n<p>The visitors had kept pace with the Eagles up until half-time, but conceded twice further without scoring during the second period at Veneto Club on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Jade Tam\u2019s dangerous corner forced a Kanako Higuchi own goal to give Victory an early boost, only for two Sarah Brunner finishes in a quarter of an hour to turn the match on its head and put the home team ahead.<\/p>\n<p>They would, however, return to the rooms level, thanks to Ella O\u2019Grady\u2019s sharp breakaway and clinical finish after 29 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it was the hosts pulling clear following the restart. Shantayah Hurford\u2019s thumping effort from the angle restored the lead, with this extended beyond reach when Priya Savarirayan scored from close range.<\/p>\n<p>Although that ended the scoring, the contest remained very much alive, and the final 15 minutes were almost exclusively played in Boroondara\u2019s back third as Victory kept pushing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fv.dribl.com\/matchcentre?m=jmazBJDB0N\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Match details are available by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Speaking to MelbourneVictory.com.au, A-League Women\u2019s Head Coach, Jeff Hopkins, encouraged the players to take plenty of learnings from the contest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were punished for mistakes and lapses in concentration against a physically strong and quick side. Our smaller, younger team were forced to adapt and adjust throughout the game, which we did really well, and our effort and ability to keep going was unquestionable. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are still learning some great lessons in this senior environment, and the main takeaway from this game was that good teams will punish mistakes, so concentration and focus must be kept for the whole of the 90 minutes and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gomvfc.com.au\/packages\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"400\" data-attachment-id=\"357344\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/melbournevictory.com.au\/news\/rawlins-departs-victory-for-overseas-transfer\/2627mem_membershiponsale_1200x400\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/melbournevictory.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2026\/05\/2627MEM_MembershipOnSale_1200x400.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1200,400\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"2627MEM_MembershipOnSale_1200x400\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2627MEM_MembershipOnSale_1200x400.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2627MEM_MembershipOnSale_1200x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-357344\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne Victory could not close the gap on Boroondara Eagles FC in the race for the Senol NPL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[329,330,25280,3911,260,332,152,5652],"class_list":["post-54140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-academy","tag-academy-news","tag-coaches-notes","tag-jeff-hopkins","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-victory","tag-news","tag-nplw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}