THE STRENGTHS

Defence was the strength of Canberra last season and they return a good portion of their defenders from a year ago. Teams had trouble scoring on Canberra last season and it does not look like it will be any easier.

Not only are they returning S. Khamis in goal, but they added Young Matildas goalkeeper, Analee Grove, to their team as well. No matter who is guarding the goal, Canberra is in safe hands.

Thankfully, they will have three new forwards who will be able to put them on the winning side of close games.  They have signed Norwegian veteran Elise Thorsnes, W-League star Leena Khamis and well experienced American Katie Stengel. 

The trio have accounted for 65 W-League goals in 142 appearances. All of them are proven W-League scorers who will make Canbera one of the most well-balanced teams this season.

The midfield will be no slouch either with both Karly Roestbakken and Olivia Price back for Canberra. They know the system at the club and can integrate the new forwards to their style of play.

Talent is all over Canberra and these pieces, according to Garriock, will fall into place with hard work.

“I’m going to stay off ambitions because I speak about ambitions every year… I just think it’s important to be solid and work really hard in preseason and training, and the results will take care of themselves.”

THE CHALLENGES

All of the new forwards are proven to be goal scorers but getting three players on the same page along with the other eight on the pitch is another story. 

The short W-League season combined with the short preseason may not be enough time for Canberra to figure out how to use all of their offensive weapons. 

As a former W-League player and now coach, Garriock knows this issue in the W-League and sees it as a possible problem for her team.

“We had ambitions of starting on the 1st of October but unfortunately due to the SPC we weren’t able to start until the 13th of October. While there are a lot of positives towards the SPC, there also becomes negatives as well, and a shorter pre-season is one of them – especially for Canberra United being such a small club.”

Since this problem is not new Garriock looked to try and make sure Canberra had as much time together as possible and added, “In an attempt to try and get some sort of edge I had my playing group ready to start on the 1st of October.”