Elevens score their first win of the season

Narrabri Eleven FC has been getting better and better each week in 2023, and the side’s rise continued when it scored an emphatic 5-0 victory away from home against Wee Waa United on Saturday.

The two sides went head-to-head at Cook Oval in the round 10 match. The Elevens were searching for their first win of the season and had only scored three goals in their first nine matches despite improving with each game.

Their struggles in front of goal looked set to continue when the sides went into half-time locked nil-all despite the visitors playing well and creating chances in the opening 40 minutes.

However, it all clicked for the Elevens in the second stanza when they piled on five goals to run away with a big win.

Tashanny Clark opened the scoring and then made it 2-0 with her second goal of the contest. Jonty Schwager then scored the next two goals before Clark completed her hat-trick with a classy strike into the top left corner.

“Finally,” coach Tim Hayne said of his team’s first win of the season.

“We’ve been building to that for the past five weeks. We’ve been putting single halves together, but we hadn’t put a full game together until the weekend, I don’t think.

“All five goals came in the second half, but we were pretty dominant in the first half. I think in the first Wee Waa only made two excursions into our half. I’m pretty over the moon with that.

“Every time they came at us, we put pressure on and won the ball, which is really good for us.

“We spent basically the whole first half down their end, but we’ve had a slight problem with the final pass and finishing.

“Once we worked out how to get the ball in the back of the net, it just didn’t stop.”

Hayne said that the hat-trick hero, talented striker Clark, had a brilliant game and deserved her goals.

“A heap of credit needs to go to Tashanny. She played amazing and she was positionally perfect,” he said.

“Every time you looked up, she was either between defenders or leaving a defender behind.

“She was always in the right place and was easy to find. It’s good to have a striker like that.

“Jonty (Schwager) was good too. He had a really big work rate.

“Danny Anderson at the back was amazing. Him and Robert Delahunt own the central part of our backline and they were great.”

The win saw the Elevens move to within three points of third-placed Wee Waa. They are still fourth on the four-team ladder on four points after a win, a draw and eight losses this season, while Wee Waa is on seven points, having won twice to go with a draw and seven losses.

It is highly likely that the first-placed Narrabri FC (28 points) and second-placed Moree Services FC (19 points), who drew 1-all in the other round 10 match in Moree, will finish in those positions come the end of the regular season.

However, Elevens coach Tim Hayne believes his side has the ability to climb the ladder into third and then make a real impact in the finals.

“We just don’t want to be left at the bottom,” he said.

“From here on, we want to put in as good a showing as we can.

“Even if we get close to second, that would be good. We just want to keep winning.”

Coach Hayne thought that the two-weekend break had probably come at the wrong time for his players, but said he hoped they could take their momentum into the next game when they take on Narrabri FC at Hogan Oval on Thursday, July 20.

“It will be a good test against FC,” he said.

“Coming off a good win, it’s the sort of game you want to run straight into, someone like them.”