AS the Herald Women’s Premier League passes its midpoint this weekend Adamstown captain Clare Cummings believes they can emulate Merewether’s feats of last season.
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Merewether captured an historic minor and major premiership double last year and after 10 rounds Rosebud are already well on the way to securing the first piece of WPL silverware.
They remain the only unbeaten side in the competition and hold a seven-point lead over second-placed Wallsend to be runaway leaders.
Cummings put part of their success this season down to a great club culture.
“If someone is having a bad day on the field then it’s not the end of the world,” Cummings said.
“We have a fair bit of trust in each other and we also have a fair bit of fun.
“Everyone knows everyone in the club. We do things with the 14s, 16s and 18s as well and we are big on club spirit.”
Cummings is also driven by the memory of a devastating 8-0 loss to Valentine in last year’s semi-finals.
Adamstown were the surprise packets of 2015. After several senior players retired from their championship-winning side of 2014, Rosebud were expected to just make up numbers.
But they were among the pace-setters for the better part of the season and a high injury toll and player losses proved their only downfall in the end.
“Last year we punched above our weight for a long time,” Cummings said.
“By the end we had a lot of injuries and we had players leave to go play in the US, and it just wasn’t our year.
“But to come second was pretty big.”
They have some new faces in the squad this year, including the return of Jets player Rhali Dobson, and new coach in Ben Herron but they are playing with the same fight and desire they became known for last year.
“At the start of the season, our coach Ben got us all to write down what we wanted as a team for the year,” Cummings said.
“We haven’t really talked about it but I would like to win the minor and major championship, like Merewether did last year, and I don’t see any reason why we can’t.
“But obviously we have to just take it one game at a time; we’re happy with how things are going at the moment.”
Cummings agreed the target on their backs was getting bigger every week as they continued their winning ways and she said they would be wary of fifth-placed Thornton this weekend.
“We don’t want to go into any game thinking we are just going to get the three points, and in this competition there is no real team that you can just pencil down that we can just get the three points from,” she said.
“We were shocked by Thornton beating Merewether last week. We’ve got them on the weekend and if they can keep a clean sheet against Merewether then there is no reason why they aren’t capable of keeping one against us.”
Merewether will look to bounce back from back-to-back losses when they host South Wallsend on Sunday and will be buoyed by the return of midfielder Sophie Jones.
Jones was part of Merewether’s championship-winning side last year as well as being their leading scorer but joined Wallsend for 2016.
Wallsend coach Marc Hingston said Jones felt she would have more of an opportunity for game time at Merewether and “left on good terms” this week.
Merewether coach Cassie Koppen welcomed Jones’s return but said she would have to start from the bench and work her back into the starting side.
“A lot of the girls have played with her before so they know her game and, having someone back in the squad with that level of experience coming off the bench, where we have been lacking a little bit in recent weeks, should give us a bit of an extra edge,” Koppen said.
Adamstown travel to play Thornton at Thornton Park, Merewether host South Wallsend at Myamblah Oval and Warners Bay are at home to Wallsend at John St Oval. All games kick off at 2.15pm on Sunday.
