Nobody took Monday’s heartbreaking defeat to Newcastle Jets harder than Wellington Phoenix captain and goalkeeper Lily Alfeld.
But with another A-League Women game to play on Thursday, Alfeld said the Phoenix have to get over the disappointment as quickly as possible and can’t dwell on it.
“It’s probably quite good that we don’t have any time to dwell on it emotionally because a lot of the girls are still hurting from last night, but we have to figure out a way to move on and to put that in the past,” Alfeld said.
“We’ll do a game review in the next few hours with the coaches and once that’s finished you close the book on that game and move on.”
The Phoenix were denied a second competition point after conceding a late goal to lose 1-0 at Central Coast Stadium in Gosford.
Jets substitute Jemma House was the quickest to react to the loose ball and poked home from close-range to score in the 82nd minute after Alfeld tipped the initial shot from Cassidy Davis onto the crossbar.
Alfeld sprung up off the ground after her save and managed to get a glove to the ball, but not before it had already crossed the goal line.
“I’ve reviewed the footage and I definitely think I could have done better with that and put it out of play.
“But it’s just the nature of it. Any other day it could have fallen to our defender, but it was right there for the taking for them to pop it in.”
Alfeld had mixed emotions after the game. She was absolutely gutted to concede a late goal, but proud of the way the Phoenix played against a Jets side that had thumped them 5-1 just a fortnight ago.
The Jets had 31 shots on Monday but only nine of those were on target, with Alfeld making eight relatively comfortable saves until House scored the winner.
“It was a hard one to lose, but I thought we definitely had it within us to hang on and even possibly nick a goal at the end.
“But overall I’m really pleased with the girls and how they turned the last performance against the Jets around and built on our last game last weekend against Sydney FC.
“There’s still pride in the way we followed through with our gameplan, and that’s definitely where we struggled in the last game where it fell to pieces.
“It’s inspiring. It’s not just the back four but the whole team from the start of the press were just immense. They threw their bodies at everything,” she said.
“They had a few shots, but everything came at me or was easy to deal with because of the sheer pressure they were getting on all of the shots, and some of them never even got to me because we managed to recover and get numbers behind the ball.”
The Sky Blues beat the Phoenix 3-0 in the previous round and their dangerous wide players caused fullbacks Saskia Vosper and Zoe McMeeken plenty of problems with their speed down the flanks.
“Their play down the wings is definitely something we’ll have to improve on and make sure we eliminate that threat they hold out there, but as long as we’re building on the previous game and tidy up the errors we made I think we’ll be pleased.”
