With Friday, 12 February 2021 marking 10 years since our famous Westfield W-League Grand Final success against Sydney FC, we decided to open the history books and quiz three players from that contest are still representing the Brisbane orange today.
Tameka Yallop scored the opening goal in the 2011 Grand Final in a rainy encounter at Campbelltown Stadium – a contest which would later be decided by a second-half strike from Lisa de Vanna, securing our second Westfield W-League title in just the league’s third edition.
How much of the game do you remember?
I definitely remember [Lisa] De Vanna’s goal and I do remember playing away and that determination to be beat Sydney FC in Sydney was a massive factor for us. It made it extra special to win away.
You knew the feeling of winning a Grand Final already – how much did that drive you to experience that feeling again?
We had a bunch of girls in the team who had been playing together for 5-6 years prior to that so just to have a league that we could win a trophy like that in, we were stoked. We had done it once before and of course we wanted to do it again.
We qualified for the Grand Final in a penalty shootout against Canberra United. How much do you remember about the lead-up & how close you were to potentially not being there?
It wasn’t the first shootout we’d been in. We were pretty used to shootout by then, we were pretty good at them by that point. The competition was very close, there were national team players in every club so every game was tough. We knew both the Semi-Final & the Grand Final were going to be especially tough.
Three squad members remain from that game – yourself, Clare Polkinghorne and Kim Carroll. Is it cool to still be playing with players from that day?
It’s kind of crazy. Back then you would pick the three of us to be the last ones standing, you kind of think that nobody is going to retire & you’re going to play together forever. It’s nice to still have the three of us standing here, standing strong and it would be pretty cool to win again 10 years on.
Ten years on, how special would it be to return to another Grand Final in 2021?
From the start of the Westfield [W-League], we were always strong and consistently in the finals so I think we just want to get back to those finals and giving ourselves those opportunities again. I know that with this team we can definitely lift that trophy again. For us, it’s just about getting into that finals series and I know we can do it under pressure.
