Matildas and City goalkeeper Lydia Williams was unavailable, with Kenshole called up when second-choice goalkeeper Emily Shields injured her wrist in the pre-match warm-up.

It took just three minutes for Sam Kerr to open the scoring after she capitalised on a break to put one past the teenage keeper.

Kerr took the plaudits however some people on social media criticised Kenshole for her efforts, but Simon urged the public to cut her some slack.

“Emily got put in last minute, she’s a young girl and doesn’t have a lot of experience but she did the best job she could,” Simon said on Tuesday.

“We had confidence having her behind us, it’s not easy getting thrown into goal in the last minute and her having step up and fill the shoes of the other two keepers.

“She can only learn from her mistakes. We win and lose together, it’s never solely one person’s fault.

“We wrapped our arms around her at the end of the game. It’s not easy copping four goals, she’ll look back at the video and will be able to critique what she did right and wrong. Hopefully she’ll be able to right those wrongs.”

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


City will face crosstown rival Melbourne Victory at AAMI Park on Friday evening in what will be a double-header before the men’s clash against Sydney FC.

The game will start at 5.20pm during peak hour, however Simon was unfazed about the awkward timing.

“We’re up for anything in the W-League, sometimes we play at 3, 5 or 7pm, time doesn’t bother us,” she said. 

“We’ll play whenever we can, we’re on a beautiful pitch in AAMI Park so time doesn’t play a factor and we’re excited for our first home game, hopefully it’ll be a great crowd.”

City are expected to dominate once again this season with the number of Matildas in the squad and their back-to-back championships.

The Melburnians find themselves last on the table and Simon was well aware there wasn’t much room for error with just 14 rounds.

“It was the first round, we’re only allowing ourselves one of those games this season,” Simon said.

“I’m sure we’ll bounce back and be better on Friday against Victory. We had our fair share of chances throughout the game and should’ve buried some against Perth.

“We need to pick ourselves which we have done and we know where our errors came from, every goal they scored was preventable and we definitively know what we need to do to nullify that.”