With Football Ferns striker Helen Collins back in the thick of the action, Waikato Bay of Plenty Football went back to the top of the ASB Women’s League after the fourth round on Sunday.
Having played a scoring hand in helping the Football Ferns reach their third successive FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament earlier this week at the Oceania Women’s Nations Cup in Papua New Guinea, Collins returned home to power her federation to a 7-1 win over Football South at St Peter’s School in Cambridge.
Collins scored five of our seven goals, pushing her league-best tally for the season to 10 while Sarah Krystman and Halee Smith were the other scorers.
Waikato Bay of Plenty actually had to recover from going behind inside the first four minutes as Football South’s Alex McIntosh gave the visitors a great start before Collins emphatically smashed her authority all over the match.
“We had one lapse of judgement and Football South capitalised on it and that made our girls wake up and pay a lot more attention,” Collins said. “Then we just carried on what we were doing up front and capitalised on our chances. For me personally it was just a matter of coming back in and doing what I do; running at players and seeing what happens and it was nice to put a few away.”
Head coach, Juan Propato, was naturally pleased with the result. “After a disappointing loss against Auckland last weekend the team stepped up, played well and got the three points today,” he said after the match. “We didn’t start well. After the first counter attack we were down 1-0 but the reaction of the team was great and we went 3-1 after 15 minutes.
“It was a great victory,” said Propato. “Next weekend’s game at Mainland is a really important game for us and we will do everything to prepare well and win.”
WaiBOP’s next game is against Mainland Pride at ASB Football Park in Christchurch on Sunday, November 9. Kick-off is at 1pm.
