WaiBop women remain positive

Despite being outgunned in their opening match, the WaiBop women’s team can move on knowing they’ve got their toughest fixture out of the way.

A 4-1 defeat on Saturday wasn’t the ideal start to their national league campaign, but when you consider it was on the road against defending champions Canterbury who are gunning for a fourth title in five seasons - the picture isn’t so rough.

The hosts in Christchurch were led well by their Football Ferns contingent, as Meikayla Moore, Annalie Longo and Aimee Phillips all found the net on their return to domestic duty, with the latter notching a double to become the competition’s highest currently-active scorer.

WaiBop, who lost 6-1 to Canterbury at home last year but progressed to only lose the preliminary final on penalties to Capital, held the home side out till Moore’s opener in the 32nd minute, then equalised seven minutes later via Sarah Krystman. But Phillips struck on the stroke of halftime to make it 2-1 at the break, then after a solo run bagged her brace on the hour, before Longo put salt into the wound with a cracking drive late in injury time.

But despite the loss, second-year coach Barry Gardiner, whose team surprised more than a few by making the finals of the seventeam competition last year, wasn’t too deterred by the opening hitout, as WaiBop look ahead to hosting Northern in Cambridge on Sunday.

‘‘We knew it was going to be a tough game going down there, they’ve got the strongest squad in the league, on paper,’’ he said.

‘‘But we’re taking some positives out of it - every team that goes down there will struggle, especially if the Ferns are playing.’’

Gardiner said while he saw decent performances from players without the ball, his side just had to do better with possession if they were going to be a true threat.

‘‘They pressed us high up the pitch and didn’t allow us time to play, which really caught us out a little bit and caused us a few problems,’’ he said.

‘‘We’ve already analysed the game, we’ve watched it back again and we’ve broken it down to what we need to improve on ourselves.

‘‘We’ve got a tough job to do now, we’ve got to look to win possibly all our games, or certainly not to have any more defeats, if we’re looking to get into that top three.’’

Gardiner deemed Northern, who were fifth last season, to be probably the secondstrongest team in the league. They started their campaign in good touch with a 5-1 thrashing of Central in Albany, though WaiBop also beat Central 4-1 pre-season.

‘‘It’ll be a difficult game for us, but it’ll certainly be a game that we’ll go into expecting and hoping and planning to win,’’ he said.