Movie sparks Comets win

By Gavin Staindl
IT was not by mistake that in the hours leading up to the Casey Comets’ biggest match of the year, coach Ian Williamson wanted to watch a movie.
But this was no ordinary Hollywood flick, this was a clip Williamson had up his sleeve to bring out when his girls needed a spark.
So, four hours before kick-off, Williamson sat his Premier League side down and together they watched a movie about the British Lions, an unpopular rugby team that was widely regarded as second rate, but it proved everyone wrong by beating South Africa on their home soil.
Willliamson related the Lions of a past era to his Casey girls.
“We needed to win (Sunday’s game) against Sandringham, but no-one wanted us to and no-one gave us a shot at doing it,” he said.
The pre-game motivation worked a treat, and within the opening two minutes, Nicola Prins had scored, giving the Comets the springboard to a 2-1 victory, which returned them to first on the WPL ladder.
Not only was the goal crucial for Casey, but also for Prins, who before Wednesday’s 2-1 win over the Emerging Athlete Program, had not scored since the first week of May.
The lead soon vanished as Casey conceded in the 67th minute when opposing striker Steph Tanti slipped in past the defence to square up the scores.
But five minutes later, Casey was awarded a penalty that had the Comets counting their lucky stars.
A Sandringham defender landed on Danielle Lawrence after making a clearing header from the box, but the referee deemed the unavoidable contact to be a foul and handed the ball over to the Casey captain. As she has all season, Mel Atherton converted the penalty, giving the Comets with what was an unassailable 2-1 lead.
While the call was highly disputable, it was a stroke of soccer justice for Casey, who needed something right to go their way. “Our attitude is good and we’ve been playing well, we just haven’t been getting the results,” Williamson said.
As Casey return to the top of the ladder four weeks out from finals, injured striker Jessica Curl explained why her team is performing so well.
“We are not a team of superstars,” Curl said.“Most teams have got one or two really good players, but we don’t. We just have a really good team.”
Williamson said this is why his team will be a formidable force in the last month before finals. “We’ve got a lot of girls from a lot of different places and countries, but they’ve all bonded really well,” he said.