Adelaide United Captain, Emma Checker, says the rescheduling of their Westfield W-League 2018/19 Round 9 clash against Newcastle Jets to Monday morning will somewhat alter their preparation.
The Reds were initially meant to face the Jets on Sunday afternoon in a double header before the Hyundai A-League match involving the same two clubs.
However, due to the extreme heat forecast, Football Federation Australia made the decision to postpone the game to Monday morning at McDonald Jones Stadium in the best interest of player welfare.
“We’ll train tomorrow, so we’ll prepare just like we would any game training the day beforehand,” Checker said ahead of the team’s departure from Adelaide Airport.
“Obviously in terms of preparation it will be a little bit different being away for a whole day like that.
“I’m not sure if we’ll watch the men, it might be dependent a bit on the temperature and how we best prepare for our game.
“But I’m sure if we’re not there live we’ll be watching them on the TV.”
Adelaide remain fourth on the table and on track to clinch a maiden finals appearance.
The 22-year-old said that a change in mindset and belief has contributed to their success so far this year and proved some of the doubters wrong.
“We’re going into every game believing that we’re good enough to win,” she said.
“And I think for us now aiming for finals is realistic and we’re not going to accept anything less than that.
“We spoke about it for a long time and I think for a lot of people, which is fair enough, may not have expected that that was something reasonable because we haven’t done it before.
“But I think now we’ve proved we’re good enough, and now it’s just a matter of keeping that consistency through until the end of the season.”
She also praised the morale within the squad.
“I think we’ve got a really special group of girls this year,” she said.
“The team camaraderie is really great, the culture has changed and I think we’re heading in a really good direction.
“So if anything is going to change this is our year.”
Adelaide United face Newcastle Jets in Round 9 of the Westfield W-League 2018/19 season on Monday, 31 December at McDonald Jones Stadium. Kick-off is at 9.00am ACDT. Streamed live on Foxsports.com.au and the My Football Live App.
