THE Wagga City Wanderers' women's first grade team has had a tough season, but the club's girls squads have proven cavalry is on its way after all three qualified for National Premier League finals.
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The under-13s, under-15s and under-17s all finished third in their maiden campaigns in the Canberra competition and will play elimination finals against Woden-Weston, Canberra United Academy and Canberra FC at Kaleen Oval next Sunday.
The under-17s will enter finals with a league-best 78 goals in 14 games, with Tess Vaccari and Megan Castle the competition's two leading scorers.
The side has regularly provided players to the senior sides and now have the luxury of focusing solely on the finals campaign.
"I always thought they'd be competitive but to get all three teams in the finals certainly supersedes what our initial hopes were for the first year, for sure," Wagga City women's coordinator and under-15s coach Gary Lyons said.
"I think we've got a good a chance as any in each age division. The 17s have provided a lot of players for the women's team through the year, so it will be good to have them fresh in finals and tg\ive that team the best opportunity.
"The 17s team has got some outstanding attacking power in particular and a very strong goalkeeper in Samantha Emms.
"They've got, several players who are very strong on goal and progressing will be a matter of a few of those players being on target."
Lyons is confident the senior team will grow stronger as the juniors progress and more local talent commits.
"To pull two senior women's teams together for the year was always a challenging task anyway," he said.
"You had a lot of local players who perhaps weren't sure about it, and we're hopeful we can get some more involvement next year.
"Our first graders are playing against teams that have the odd ex Matilda or former W-League players or some that are a step away from that, NPL1 is a whole new level."
Football Wagga development officer Liam Dedini believes all three girls teams are capable of contending for titles.
"I think all teams have done extremely well and they've played a couple of teams also in finals in recent week and had close games, or got a result," he said.
"It's definitely a chance for all three teams to push deep into finals.
"The juniors have always had great success back when we were running the academy programs and when they went away to tournaments, they were winning a lot of them.
"It was really good to go into the NPL environment this year and prove a point, and hopefully now they can go on with it in the finals series."
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