Tara Murray
Another season and there’s another trophy in the cabinet for Calder United.
The defending National Premier League Women’s champions started their season by winning the Community Shield.
The shield normally is the winner of the Nike F.C Cup and the NPLW champions going head-to-head, but with Calder winning both it faced Bulleen.
Defending the title they won last year, Calder beat Buleen on 3-2 to remain the champions.
Co-coach Helen Winterburn who wasn’t at the game due to Western United duties, said it was nice to start the season that way.
“It was a positive start for the players to get a good result against Bulleen,” she said.
“I watched back on the tape and we were the better team and created more chances and made the most of them.”
Elle Talevski was named player of the match.
Winterburn said it was good for the side to get out there in a competitive manner after not many pre-season games.
She said there were always going to be some challenges early on.
“Coming to a new club with new coaches and players,” she said.
“We haven’t played too many pre-season games, but what we’ve put in place came out in the game.”
Calder will have a different looking side this season, with 11 members of last season’s team and coach Mark Torcaso all moving on to Western United,
Winterburn said it gives opportunities for other players to step up to this level.
“We’ve signed a few international players who will bring quality in the midfield,” she said.
“We’ve also decided to reward some players from our under-19s. It’s fantastic as it shows the work the club has done with layering coming through the younger age groups and for them to now get senior opportunities shows the others what they can achieve.”
Several Calder players who are returning this season have spent the off season as train on players with Western United.
Talevski, Montanna Mathews, Bella Sewards, Tiarna Stella and Ava Groba are some of those players who were part of the Western United train on squad.
Winterburn said having those players back at the club was a massive bonus.
“They come back into the group at Calder and bring more leadership,” she said. “It’s a massive boost for us and it sets the standard.:
Winterburn, who has joined Calder this season, said it had been a different type of challenge coming across and working with slightly older players.
Despite being new to the environment, she has quickly brought in the club mentality.
“We want to win, but we definitely want to focus on developing players,” she said.
“As a group we want to continue to push players to improve and get batter.
“As the squad grows in terms of performance, that goes hand in hand. We also want to continue to create a great environment for the players and challenge them.”
Calder was set to start its season on Friday night against Box Hill, after deadline.
