Appreciating Hannah Wilkinson’s Goal-Stacked A-League Season
The Football Ferns are co-hosting a World Cup next year and the biggest hurdle to their chances of doing something special is their ability, or lack thereof, to score goals. So when Hannah Wilkinson signed with Melbourne City in the A-League, a competition which has provided a welcome shot of energy into many a kiwi footballer’s career over the years, it was bound to be a good thing. Yet few could have predicted exactly how good of a thing it would prove to be.
14 goals in 14 games, including a double in the semi-finals. Didn’t win the Golden Boot as it’s only a regular season rewards but she still ended up as the top scorer overall. Equalled an A-League record with five in one game. Never went more than two games in a row without a banger. Started every match she was available for, missing two games for Footy Ferns duty but otherwise playing 1289 out of 1290 total minutes. Plus even aside from the copious goals she was prominently involved for a team that looked to press and control possession in a conveniently similar way to what the Ferns are trying to achieve under Jitka Klimková. The vibes are immaculate.
Across her career, Wilkie has either scored in bundles or hardly at all. It’s a weird trend. A couple different stints in Sweden have seen her produce very limited quantities of bangers – although she did score a screamer for Vittsjö once that was literally the goal that saved them from relegation. Yet in between that was a season with Sporting Lisbon where she scored heaps of them. She only spent half a season with MSV Duisburg as they wandered towards an inevitable relegation though did manage to put a few away. Now she’s gone hundies with Melbourne City.
Vittsjö (Sweden) – 3 goals in 33 league matches
Sporting CP (Portugal) – 16 goals in 20 matches in all comps
Djurgården (Sweden) – 0 goals in 17 league matches
MSV Duisburg (Germany) – 3 goals in 10 matches
Melbourne City (Australia) – 14 goals in 14 matches
Football Ferns – 26 goals in 103 matches
Some of those stats are hard to source, hence a couple are only league apps (tbf those are the most important). However that trend remains abundantly clear. It could be a matter of playing largely for teams that have struggled. Vittsjö and Duisburg were teams that didn’t score a lot of goals full stop while Sporting CP are one of the big dog clubs in Portugal and were winning games by huge margins until covid curtailed that term. Djurgården were somewhere in between... but most of Wilkinson’s games for them were off the bench hence that 0/17 rate is quite misleading. Only 503 combined minutes there (and she did score in cup comps). And Melbourne City were a finals team so no shortage of chances there.
Seems to add up to a player who scores goals for good teams and doesn’t for bad teams, right? As is the trend for most strikers. Somewhat significant Football Ferns issue there being that the Fernies are a bad team more often than they’re a good team, at least in the games that matter most at the big tournaments. They’ll get a more favourable draw as co-hosts at the next World Cup but it’s still a frisky one. Then again, Wilkinson has been able to find the back of the net against the bigger nations as much as anyone else for the Fernies in recent years. She has goals against USA, China, Australia, Norway, Spain, and Italy in her career. In fact she has four goals in eleven games against USA which you’ve gotta think is a better average than most.
Liv Chance had an ACL injury at a similar time to Hannah Wilkinson’s prior to the last World Cup. It meant that she basically lost her spot at Everton and despite a pretty good season with Bristol City she was moved on at the end of that campaign. Chance played on a short term deal down a division with Sheffield United then moved to Brisbane Roar where she was superb and before you knew it she’d leveraged that into a move to Celtic FC where she’s a key player in their midfield.
That example is a perfect case of what Wilkinson will have been aiming for when she signed with Melbourne City. A winning club that’d give her plenty of opportunity to shine and the momentum to launch herself into a great deal overseas. The last bit there will take some more time but the rest of it went pretty much according to plan.
First couple games of the ALW season, Wilkie did show some rust. It had been more than four months since she last played (for the Ferns at the Olympics) and she spurned a few good looks across a win against Canberra and a defeat to Melbourne Victory. But if there was any buyer’s remorse from City fans at that stage then it was quickly extinguished by a double against Adelaide in game three and then, eight days later, this happened in a dramatic script-flipping Melbourne Derby...
Hannah Wilkinson had a hatty within 26 minutes, shattering the league record. She then added two more to tie Kate Gill’s A-League Women’s record of five bangers in a single match. It was a masterclass of clever positioning, composed finishing, and a little bit of physical dominance. As well as some excellent work from her teammates whom Wilkinson was quick to shout out in her post-game interview. Five goals from six shots in that game was beyond amazing and shows you that she was getting served the ball in some very tasty areas.
Kate Gill, curiously enough, was born in New Zealand. However she grew up and played all her footy in Australia and actually debuted for the Matildas against Aotearoa... going on to score 41 goals in 86 caps. She scored her five for Perth Glory in a 10-1 win over Western Sydney back in 2014. Sam Kerr scored twice for Perth that day also. Craziest thing about that game was it was still 0-0 after 40 minutes.
At that point we were a month into the season and Hannah Wilkinson already had seven goals to her name. Nobody else in the competition had more than three. She scored another in a 4-0 win over the Wellington Phoenix next up and although she did then slow up a little she still had 10 from 10 as she shipped off for the SheBelieves Cup with the national team in February.
Unfortunately in the same week as she scored her tenth, an inconsequential injury time effort in a 4-0 win over Perth, Fiona Worts and Chelsea Dawber went nuts for Adelaide United in an 8-2 win over Brisbane. Dawber scored one to take her up to eight for the season while Worts... well, she scored five. Equalling that Wilkinson/Gill feat. Took her up to nine overall. Then while Wilkinson was away with the Ferns, Dawber (2) and Worts both scored in a 4-1 win over the Phoenix and then Worts got all three in a 3-0 win over Melbourne Victory.
Wilkinson scored in each of her remaining games but still fell one short of Worts in the Golden Boot standings. Worts with 13, Wilkinson with 12, Dawber with 10. For what it’s worth, Sam Kerr (twice) and Emily Gielnik are the only players to have scored more than 12 times in an ALW regular season before.
Granted it was a longer season this time around thanks to the addition of the Phoenix... but Wilkinson missed two games for international duty which cancels that out in her case. Not in Worts’ case though, FW played every match and thus Wilkinson finished second on the standings but with a better strike-rate: 12 goals in 12 games for Wilko compared to 13 goals in 14 games for Wortsy. But neither Worts nor Dawber scored in their 2-1 semi-finals loss to Melbourne Victory, whereas Hannah Wilkinson added two more in the finals to overtake Worts overall.
One of the games that Hannah Wilkinson (and Rebekah Stott) missed was a 1-0 loss to Brisbane Roar. Those dropped points left them needing Sydney FC to slip up in the final week if they were to win the minor premiership. That didn’t happen. City took care of their own business with a 2-0 win over Western Sydney but a Paige Satchell goal for SFC earned them a 1-0 win over Adelaide to clinch first. They did keep Worts and Dawber quiet... but Wilkie had already only scored once against WSW a few hours earlier so the Golden Boot race was over. Did have a couple other big chances that day but it wasn’t to be.
No dramas, because sixty minutes into her subsequent game, the major semi against Sydney FC for a direct spot in the grand final, City were leading 2-0 and Wilkie had scored both of them. Melbourne City in a great place to challenge for their fifth championship in seven years... then it all went awry. Sydney rallied back and ended up winning 4-2 after extra time with City earning two red cards. Then City lost 3-1 to Melbourne Victory a week later and their season was over. Bummer.
Not quite how it might have panned out. But it doesn’t take away from what was overall a massive campaign from Hannah Wilkinson and one that should give her bundles of confidence as well a glittering highlight reel to offer around to overseas clubs (presuming that’s the plan, of course – at the very least there’d be an instant contract on offer to return to Melly City if she’d prefer it).
But it’s the Football Ferns who oughta be most excited by what they witnessed over the last few months. Hannah Wilkinson has often been asked to play on the wing or as an impact sub at club level, something that you wouldn’t necessarily guess from the way she’s tended to be used as a physical target striker by previous Ferns coaches. She’s had that in her locker for a while, no doubt about it, and this Melbourne City season seemed to hammer home that that best way to unlock Wilkie is as a fully rounded centre forward.
Allow her to drop in and be a part of the build-up, get her rushing around on the press when out of possession. Rather than the one-dimensional stuff where just because she’s tall you think you’ve gotta hit long balls in her direction. Don’t ask her to be the Ferns version of Chris Wood. That always felt like an impatient response to a deeper issue of creativity. Now we’ve got a clear vision of the alternative and it just so happens that it fits nicely within what Jitka Klimková is trying to do.
Didn’t quite get to see that at the SheBelieves Cup. Wilkinson started all three games but wasn’t able to translate her City form into the national team. There were a few slick link-ups with Paige Satchell (watch that space moving forward) but precious few shots and a bit too much of the sloppy stuff. But we can probably shrug that one off as it was Wilkie’s first involvement under Klimková having missed the first two tours due to travel restrictions. If we admit that this is a fairly substantial shift in style under JK (in fairness to Tom Sermanni there were hints of a more expansive passing game at the Olympics... he just never had a chance to take it further – his team hadn’t played for 16 months prior to the Tokyo Games) then we have to accept that it’s not gonna be an instant fix and that the team as well as its individuals need to be given time.
Plus the third game against Czechia, the best performance of the three, was played in minus temperatures so cold that Wilkinson was rocking a head-warmer to keep her ears from falling off (in her own words). The best performance of all three Ferns tours with JK has been the last one which is another clue as to the benefit of time and training together.
We’ll save the Ferns striker depth chat for another day. Bottom line here is that the player at the top of that chart, the highest scoring active player, just gave her career a gigantic boost via some A-League excellence. This wasn’t only one of the best goal-scoring seasons that the ALW has ever seen, but in one single campaign she’s managed to become the all-time leading kiwi goal-scorer in the comp. 14 goals topping the 11 that Emma Kete scored across four seasons. Now we wait to see which club will be the next beneficiary of her goal-scoring boom.
If you dig the yarns then please support us on Patreon, should you be so generous
Also whack an ad to say cheers, sign up to our Substack, and share an article here or there
Keep cool but care