I'd be lying if I said I approached this W-League grand final with all parts excitement because I've finally, after years of watching football, cottoned on to the fact that while the final marks the season's climax, it also sounds its end. And with just 10 rounds preceding it, the Westfield W-League's end comes far, far too soon and heralds in months of female football empty.
That's not to say that it wasn't a brilliant final-it was-and, even though we didn't see a return of last year's topless, bear beanie-sporting streaker, it lived up to the cliché that football is a game of two (thrilling and five-goal) halves.
Roar Women took the lead just 15 minutes in when last season's W-League Player of the Year, Lana Harch, didn't even break stride as she ran onto Jo Burgess's perfectly placed header and put Roar ahead with an absolute cracker. They continued to dominate the half, prompting the commentators to note that they'd chosen this match to answer their wobbly form critics and prompting us to wonder if last-minute Premieres Sydney had played their grand final in the sudden death, one-woman-down semi.
But Sydney got either a stern talking to or an inspiring pep talk at the break, and returned to the pitch to score not one, not two, but three second half goals and, despite a 93rd-minute penalty that saw Roar claw one back, snatch victory.
The match too wasn't without comedy, with Kylie Ledbrook copping a bullet-like ball to the torso early on that dropped her like we're used to seeing with oh-my-balls guys.
Then Roar captain Clare Polkinghorne pulled off one of the most spectacular I'm-defending-the-ball-now-I've-stepped-on-it-and-stacked-it stacks in the box, which was part muppet and part hero as she made sure to keep her prone and sprawled body goal side to thwart the Sydney shot.
She followed it up with a goalmouth defensive deflection that almost resulted in an own goal and most likely experienced I-need-to-change-my-underpants heart palpitations as the full knowledge of what lead-undoing damage could have been done set in.
Then Linda O'Neill got on the end of a Sarah Walsh pass to score Sydney's first goal and spark their comeback. We'll give her the benefit of the doubt because she did end up on the bottom of a celebratory dog pile and may have copped an elbow, boot, or 10 other women's winding weight on her chest, but she spent the next 10 minutes so struggling to suck in the big ones that the camera kept (much to our amusement) cutting back to her, she kept looking to the bench, and my friend joked, 'Can you sub yourself?'
Meanwhile Sydney captain Heather Garriock channelled Kevin Muscat as she imposed herself hard-woman physically-the Sydney dressing room whiteboard reportedly bore the words 'Don't dive in', but Garriock clearly either didn't think it applied to her or amended it with the words 'unless you're going in late, high, studs up, and near their knee'-and was then the first to get in the referee's ear when someone so much as thought about returning the physicality.
Whichever team you supported, you'd agree that the five-goal match was grand final worthy. The football was skilful, the match hard fought and edge-of-your-seat, and the goals impressive. But then, just like that, the final was over and, despite wanting more women's football, more thrilling matches, and potentially more comedy, we're now staring down the barrel of almost another year until season three.
While I get that the W-League is starting out and needs to go softly softly, I've never been able to ascertain why the season is so short. As fellow football writer Eamonn Flanagan reminded me just a few days ago, with just 10 rounds, it's not possible for all eight teams to meet twice and the lopsided schedule could potentially affect the top four.
I wouldn't for a moment say that the best two teams didn't make it to the final-I believe they did-but it does make you wonder, if not at the 10-round outcome then at least at the apparent lack of logic behind it.
Couple that with the knowledge that if you're trying to build a following, you'd think you'd offer a season long enough and playing locations consistent enough (not constantly moving in, in particular, the case of the Central Coast) for you-should-see-this-skilful-football word of mouth to work.
Perhaps Westfield have been distracted from applying such logic to the W-League as they've been pouring their energy into tapping into people's greed courtesy of the $10,000 gift card they're dangling like a carrot on Facebook.
It's no secret that I've been appalled not so much at Westfield's efforts but at people's shamelessly dollar sign-driven willingness to sign up for and go along with them and then their subsequent hysteria that-as they say in 'he's be-hind you' horror movie moments-'it's a vi-rus'.
And while I want nothing to do with Westfield's Giftmas marketing promotion, what I will say is that all I want for Christmas is a longer, bigger, here sooner W-League season three.
