Umina v East Gosford
Third-placed Umina will host second-placed East Gosford for the WPL round 12 match of the round as these two teams with quite the history will go to battle once again come Saturday night at Umina Oval.
It has been quite an up-and-down season so far for Umina and their new head coach Michael Penn.
Penn stated at the start of the season that 2024 will serve as a transitioning year for his side as the E-Gals said goodbye to multiple premiership-winning players who played a significant part in Umina’s success in recent times.
Nonetheless, Umina still finds themselves in a finals position after their opening eight fixtures, currently sitting third on the ladder with a record of four wins, one draw, and three losses.
Last weekend Umina made the long trek down South as new WPL side Woongarrah welcomed the E-Gals for their highly anticipated second meeting of the year.
It was another high-scoring affair between the two clubs as Umina grabbed a late winner to record a 4-3 victory and get back to winning ways after a disappointing mid-week loss to Kanwal.
Umina will now look to build on that result and avenge their biggest loss of the year when they battle against reigning WPL premiers East Gosford.
Umina will be boosted by the return of their prolific goal scorer Kate Styles who has been absent in recent games and her quality and experience have truly been missed within this young side.
“You don’t lose a player of Kate’s quality without it having an effect on our performance,” Penn stated.
“Whilst we still managed to score seven goals in her absence, I believe the goal tally would have been significantly higher with her involvement resulting in six points in our last two games instead of three.”
Reflecting on their last meeting and what his side took away from that 4-0 loss to the Rams, Penn voiced how dangerous their key players are and that’s an area they will need to do better at managing come Saturday.
“East Gosford have a very strong midfield and we will have to negate their control of the game in that area.”
Another area of focus for Penn is his backline who have leaked seven goals in just their last two fixtures alone.
When asked if this is worrying to him, Penn commented, “The obvious answer to that question is yes.”
“However, this is a new team that have only played a handful of games together. We will continue to work on our defence as a team. In the meantime, we need to continue scoring more goals than our opposition.
“As I mentioned previously, to be successful this weekend we need to negate their midfield play and starve their strikers of the ball. We also need our strikers to be precise with their finishing in front of goal.”
As for this weekend’s visitors, East Gosford will be raring to get back on the pitch after seeing defeat for the first time in 2024.
The Rams met league leaders Terrigal at Pluim Park mid-week last Wednesday for their rescheduled round 6 fixture which saw East Gosford record a 2-0 defeat.
When reflecting on that loss and how the team has responded since, Jorge expressed, “We haven’t had much of a chance to process the game against Terrigal.”
“It was disappointing that we lost because of two mistakes from our defensive line, that’s something that we need to work on over the next couple of weeks, you can’t allow chances like that against Terrigal because they will punish you.”
Jorge also touched on how he feels the team is progressing as the year plays out. “With the stop-start season we have had so far, I think we are in the same boat as most teams.”
“We are not really where we want to be at this stage of the year, but we are working on it, hopefully we get some sun over the next couple of weeks and continue to improve week after week.”
Last year’s Grand Final winners have had quite the turnover of personnel, but Jorge has recruited extremely well to once again challenge for first place and defend their title of WPL Premiers.
It was quite the straight-forward result for the Rams in their last encounter with Umina as they were able to cruise to a 4-0 victory on enemy territory.
East Gosford will once again make the trip to Umina Oval for this weekend’s Saturday night fixture as they look for a similar result with the hopes they can close the distance on Terrigal and further distance themselves on the ladder from the rest of the top four.
Jorge knows the significance of the stretch of games his team has coming up but is highly focused on the tough challenge that lies ahead in Umina.
“We just have to look forward to the next few games, we have some extremely crucial fixtures coming up and this weekend against Umina is going to be a big game for both teams.”
“I expect Umina to come out fired up like they always do against us. I believe it will be a great game with the team keeping their composure the most throughout the ninety minutes will win the game and claim the three points.”
Match Official – Troy Ward
All Round 12 Fixtures –
