Tuggies hosts internationals
The 2009 McDonald’s Kanga Cup lived up to it’s motto of ‘Uniting the Youth of the World Through Football’ yesterday morning with Tuggeranong United playing host to both New Zealand and Chinese Taipei sides.
With two international teams in the Girls Under-15 competition, the Tuggeranong club enjoyed a double header with Tuggeranong Comets taking on Coastal Spirit followed by the Jillaroos hosting Feng-Si Junior High School in the cup competition.
While the score lines won’t be remembered, the Jillaroos head coach Andrew Rose believes his players won’t soon forget the experience.
“I did say to my girls before the tournament that playing this Chinese team is something they’ll remember for a long time after they’ve stopped playing football,” Rose said.
“Also that Coastal Spirit team is quite a good team.”
An eight goal second half with hat-tricks to Coastal Spirit’s Melanie Cameron and Teagan MacDonald, the New Zealand side ran out 12-0 victors.
The Christchurch based club remains undefeated and yet to concede a goal after the third day of the youth football tournament to lead the way in Pool A.
Meanwhile in Pool B it was Feng-Si Junior High School who also maintained their perfect record at the tournament with a 6-0 victory over the Jilaroos.
Four first half goals for the international visitors gave Tuggeranong a difficult deficit to nullify, however, a great second half performance saw the south Canberra club hold their own which included some great goalkeeping.
While there was little surprise about the result, Rose was very pleased with his side’s performance and believes the experience alone taught the girls a lot.
“I think the girls played well given the end result,” Rose said.
“Going in I knew that we were probably going to be outclassed technically.”
“It was played in a good spirit and it was quite a good game.”
“We went in there with the view that we’re going to learn from this one and the girls just getting the experience, a good friendly game against an international Chinese Taipei team.”
According to Rose, the opportunity to play against international sides is giving local players a chance to benchmark themselves against their peers.
“It’s especially good having these international teams in the girl’s competitions.”
“There were a few early years where we weren’t getting the range of teams coming from interstate but to have a couple international sides like Chinese Taipei and New Zealand certainly shows the quality we’ve got amongst our girls isn’t too far off, despite the score.”