Day 1 of the 2016 FFA Futsal Nationals saw the ACT teams compete in 19 matches across ten age groups (incl AWD) and saw probably fewer victories than had been anticipated and a few shock losses for strong ACT teams expected to do well this Championship. In summary:
The 12 Girls had a win and a loss from their two matches, with Emma Ilijoski shining in front of goals in game one.
12 Boys White (development squad) were on the wrong end of a couple of big scorelines, but showed a lot of promise and heart, and potential (including a second Ilijoski registering multiple goals on the score sheet).
12 Boys Blue lost a very tight encounter against front runners, NSW Thunder, but in the process demonstrated far more positives than negatives.
13 Boys had a tough tussle against one of last year’s tough teams, Victoria Magic.
14 Boys were on the wrong end of a couple of double digit score lines, but will have learnt a lot about playing Nationals futsal today.
14 Girls went down to a very strong Thunder team, but shone through to record a win for their second Day 1 match against Queensland Regional.
16 Girls registered a strong come-from-behind win against NSW Country with two late goals by Ash Garrity.
16 Boys White had a tough tussle against Queensland Metro, which could well have gone the other way with a bit more luck and less ‘posts’ hit!
16 Boys Blue went down to a surprisingly strong NSW Lightning team, before being hammered by NSW Thunder in the afternoon match. Two tough games to start their meet – it will get easier for the 16 Boy Blues!
Youth Women put on a strong showing against NSW Lightning to take out the match by the narrowest of margins.
Youth Men White held their Lightning opposition quite brilliantly in the first half but ran out of legs in the second half in one of the matches of the day.
Youth Men Blue – last year’s national champions, were reminded that this is a new competition, with a solid defeat to an energetic and keen South Australian Youth team.
The Capital Fotball AWD team came back for a strong victory over SA after being hammered in the morning by a quality NSW Thunder outfit.
Five victories from 19 matches was certainly not an ideal start to a tournament, however these week-long championships are won on Friday, not Monday, and teams need to build into the week and be peaking around finals time.
Tomorrow promises to be another stunning day of top quality futsal with ACT teams featuring in another 21 matches across the three National Futsal Championship venues.
12 Girls
ACT Boomerangs FS 6 – 0 NSW Country
(Goals: Emma Ilijoski 4, Alexia Forner, Josephine Dubbert)
ACT Boomerangs FS 2 – 4 NSW Thunder
(Goals: Leah Geale, Jordan Ujdur)
12 Boys (White)
ACT Boomerangs FS 4 – 12 NSW Country
(Goals: Zac Ilijoski 2, Nicholas Pratezina, Other)
ACT Boomerangs FS 0 – 14 NSW Lightning
12 Boys (Blue)
ACT Boomerangs FS 1 – 4 NSW Thunder
(Goals: Noah Dowling)
13 Boys
ACT Boomerangs FS 4 – 10 Victoria Magic
(Goals: Zac Barbatano 2 Murphy Shaw, Olly McCarthy,)
14 Boys
ACT Boomerangs FS 3 – 11 NSW Country
(Goals: Ryan Edwards, Will Manalo, Connor Bill)
ACT Boomerangs FS 0 – 11 NSW Thunder
14 Girls
ACT Boomerangs FS 0 – 10 NSW Thunder
ACT Boomerangs FS 3 – 1 Queensland Regional
(Goals: Isabella Tammaro 2, Stella De Marco)
16 Girls
ACT Boomerangs FS 2 – 1 NSW Country
(Goals: Ashlyn Garrity 2)
16 Boys (White)
ACT Boomerangs FS 2 – 4 Queensland Metro
(Goals: Harry Williams, Pat Oduro)
16 Boys (Blue)
ACT Boomerangs FS 0 – 5 NSW Lightning
ACT Boomerangs FS 1 – 12 NSW Thunder
(Goals: Parsa Tabatabaei )
Youth Women
ACT Boomerangs FS 4 – 3 NSW Lightning
(Goals: Nat De Marco, Alex Martens, Ruth Kravis, Olivia Gurney)
Youth Men (White)
ACT Boomerangs FS 0 – 5 NSW Lightning
Youth Men (Blue)
ACT Boomerangs FS 3 – 7 South Australia
(Goals: Barlow 2, Zeitlhofer)
AWD
Capital Football 0 v 8 NSW Thunder
Capital Football 7 v 5 FFSA
(Goals: Adrian Araya 2, Cameron Gudgeon 2, Andrew Hoatson, Shaun Gower, Mark Olivieri)
Keep up to date on the The Official FFA Futsal Nationals Website