Despite of the Mataliki team facing new challenges the day before their opening game, head coach, Connie Selby is confident that the team is ready and excited for the game against Samoa tomorrow evening.
“Having chatted to the girls individually the other night they are all excited, they are all willing and I know they are ready to give a hundred and ten percent. The only thing that concerns me is that they might get too excited about the game and expel too much energy under one go”.
Connie believed that the friendly match with Fiji helped her changed a few playing style and the team has adapted to it very quick. “We panicked against Fiji when I re-watched the video and I think we were better than what we gave ourselves credit for and we just didn’t do much running off the ball to support the player on the ball so hopefully tomorrow night we can do a lot more of that.
Samoa stands at 109 in the women world rankings while Tonga Women’s team are up there at number 92. However, this match is going to be a tough match after Samoa’s squad features some really talented players not only from Samoa but also some overseas based players. “They got a couple of players there that are quite quick including their striker and they got little bit of some nice defenders at the back and they are not going to be easy. Their number 9 I think she can strike a nice ball so it should be a problem for us”.
The North American-based trio has also joined the team this morning and they are all excited to play tomorrow. “From the defence we got one player who’s going to play in the back three, one in the midfield and two in the front at this stage because some of the players are injured and one who has covid so we have to just juggle a little few things around to see how that works but I think they will add a new dimension to the team and I think one of the twins from America, she’ll be quick and fast which will cause the defence of Samoa a little bit of trouble”.
Samoa and Tonga has always been a rivalry and tomorrow’s game will be the Mataliki’s 4th International Match since covid broke out early 2020.
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