Women’s team hopeful for friendlies next month

By PATRICIA KEAMO
THE national team are hoping to play international friendlies during the Fifa windows from next month as part of their preparations for the Oceania Football Confederation Women’s Nations Cup to be held in Fiji from July 13-30.
The Nicola Demaine-coached side are into the third week of their extended camp that will continue till next month.
“We’re hoping to travel and play in the Fifa windows from June 20-28,” Demaine told The National.
“My plan was always to play an international fixture in all the Fifa windows, but obviously that’s subjected to approval and budgeting available to the team.
We’ve got this extra week because the Nations Cup was supposed to start on July 5, but it has been moved (to July 13).
“So we’re just trying to work out what that time looks like whether go somewhere and play more games, come back here. There are lots of difference things that we’re still trying to nail down for more games.
“If we get an opportunity to go to Fiji earlier and there’s a team not in our group, we’d love to play one of the Oceania teams too as part of that.” Meanwhile, Demaine’s squad have three trial matches scheduled for the next three weeks against local men’s teams. “This is aimed at getting game time together as a team, obviously it’s really important and we’re focusing on those transition moments on how we want to attack and defend,” she said.
“We’re more focused on bonding as a team, as a group and understanding what chances we can use.
“We’re still perfecting our match day routine, our off-field routine as it has been ongoing since camp one.” Meanwhile, the PNG Football Association is trying to organise the team to play a side from Asia or Australia.