Ashburton head coach Sinisa Cohadzic rued his side’s missed opportunities early in their clash against Box Hill United, as the team lost 5-2 in the opening fixture of the Women’s Premier League season.
The visitors won a penalty in just the third minute of the game, but were denied by Melissa Barbieri who kept her nerve to save not only the initial spot kick, but also the second attempt after a retake was called for players encroaching into the box.
Cohadzic was disappointed his side couldn’t make the most of the situation, and felt his young side didn’t react too well to the setback.
“Listen, we needed a good start and we had that penalty and then after the retake, I mean that’s why Melissa is one of the Matildas because of those reasons,” Cohadzic said.
“Then confidence wise it’s probably put my team a little bit down and turned everything around.
“They scored after maybe fifteen minutes, after that probably our heads dropped down.
“There are some inexperienced girls in there, some young girls and that was the turning point for us. We needed to start well and we didn’t score that penalty when we needed it even after two retakes and that turn the game around.”
Ashburton were also left to rue some poor defending for the goals they conceded, and Cohadzic believes that his new look defence could have done better to prevent four of the five goals.
But the endeavour shown in the second half, capped off by a brace from Jesse Kotsikas gives him hope that the his team can match it with the stronger sides.
“What can I take from here tonight is Box Hill scored the one phenomenal goal and four goals we conceded from our own mistakes,” he said.
“If we can minimise that we will do well.
“Obviously we’re lacking a couple of players and that’s going to be the case this year and can we cover that or not it’s still to be seen but if we can minimise these mistakes that we made today that were conceded goals we still can upset some teams.”
Next up for Ashburton will be FC Bulleen Lions, another stern test for Cohadzic’s side, and with the Women’s State Knockout Cup fixture against Heidelberg in just under a fortnight, the games do not get any simpler for them.
“It doesn’t get easier for us, because the squad that we have, is easy to say the most inexperienced squad that we have in the league,” he said.
“There’s going to be ups and downs but hopefully we can turn it around.”