Favourites NSW Metro and Queensland have qualified in the top positions of their respective groups in the Under 15’s after the final day of games at the Qantas National Talent Identification Championships at Valentine Park in Sydney, while in the Under 17’s Victoria and South Australia came out as group winners.
Favourites NSW Metro and Queensland have qualified in the top positions of their respective groups in the Under 15-s after the final day of games at the Qantas National Talent Identification Championships at Valentine Park in Sydney, while in the Under 17-s Victoria and South Australia came out as group winners.
In the 15-s, NSW Metro needed two goals in the final ten minutes to scrape home against group runner-up Victoria, with the game finishing 2-1.
Annabelle Gibney put Victoria ahead in the 50th minute and looked set to secure its place in the semi finals.
However a concerted effort from NSW Metro saw Jo-Anne Saliba equalise in the 60th minute and then with four minutes remaining Kelly Cheng netted the winner.
That loss had Victoria sweating with South Australia needing a win by four goals in the second match to grab second place. SA though was only able to manage a 3-0 win over NSW Country finishing level on goal difference with Victoria, but the Vic-s scored one more goal than SA.
Anastasia Stolias gave SA a terrific start with a goal in the 10th minute and at a goal by Stella Rigon a minute before half time gave SA a 2-0 lead.
Rigon added her second and SA-s third in the 59th minute, but despite applying plenty of pressure in the final ten minutes was unable to secure the vital fourth goal it needed to be part of the semi finals.
Northern Territory, who had the bye in the last round, finished fourth in the group with NSW Country a disappointing last.
Group B saw Queensland finish as the group winner after defeating Western Australia 3-0. Northern NSW finished second in the group, despite having the bye.
The game was fairly evenly matched for the majority of the game, with Leah Curtis- 29th minute goal all that separated them for an hour. However with WA committing players forward, Queensland was able to capitalise with goals from Lisa Wilkinson (61-) and Samantha McIntosh (67-).
In the group-s second match, ACT came out on top against Tasmania in the battle for fourth and fifth positions, winning 4-0.
Courtney Attwood opened the scoring for ACT after 17 minutes and a minute later Jess O-Brien made it 2-0. Mieka Whitford and Ihana Aitchison also scored within minutes of each other in the second half to round out a comfortable win for ACT.
The Under 17-s saw both group favourites miss out on the semi finals.
Queensland gave itself of qualifying in the semi finals of Group A after a single goal win over Northern NSW, but Victoria-s 2-0 win over Tasmania is the second game, saw Victoria overtake Northern and win the group and relegate the Queenslanders to third position.
Alannah Reed scored the goal for Queensland in just the fourth minute, while Victoria-s goals were scored by Christine Pfeiffer (17-) and Aleks Sinclair (75-).
In Group B, NSW Metro needed a win over ACT to force its way into the semi finals, but were held to a 0-0 draw, which allowed the ACT to grab second spot behind a dominant South Australia.
South Australia made easy work of Northern Territory, winning 6-0. Amy Shigrov grabbed two goals in the win.
