League leaders back in sight

THE sleeping giant of the NPL Women’s may finally have woken.

Tipped as title challengers in pre-season, Gold Coast United’s early-season slumber appears behind them after disposing of Sunshine Coast 6-2 at Robina on Saturday night.

The Round 13 victory, which featured another Meg McElligott hat-trick, was United’s third from their past five games and has kept them within touching distance of fourthplaced Moreton Bay United.

“We’re on a strong run of only one loss in five games now and confidence is building within the squad,” coach Michael Cook said.

“There’s still a lot of key areas for us to improve on though. I’ve really enjoyed working with this great group for the first half of the season and look forward to a strong second half of the campaign.”

United fired early to take a 3-0 lead after little more than 30 minutes thanks to goals from Mackenzie Akins, Dee Thompson and McElligott, but Cook had cause for concern when Sunshine Coast narrowed the deficit to 3-2 by halftime.

However, when Thompson (50th minute) and McElligott (55th and 65th minutes) struck within 20 minutes of the break, the game was over.

“While we were a little careless for a 10-minute period at the end of the first half, it was a

very commanding performance from our team,” Cook said.

“Meghan Kealy-Hawkins had one of her best games in goal tonight … and the combination of Dee and Meg up top is very exciting for us.”

McElligott’s bag took her season tally to 27 goals in 12 games, including hauls of six against SWQ and Western Pride and four against Capalaba.

In her past five games, the 22-year-old Port Macquarie product has found the net 15 times to put her 10 goals clear of The Gap’s Tiarne Petterwood on the NPL leaderboard.

Having played sides below them in their past three outings, United will now prepare for a crucial battle with sixthplaced Mitchelton at Robina on Sunday.

The Mustangs are five points clear of United but fell 4-2 to lowly Logan Lightning on Friday night.