De Reus eagerly awaiting W-League

Matildas Head Coach Hesterine de Reus is looking forward to the start of the new Westfield W-League season, as she continues to develop her national program.

Matildas Head Coach Hesterine de Reus is looking forward to the start of the new Westfield W-League season, as she continues to develop her national program.

Having had time to digest the performance of the Matildas on their recent European tour, De Reus was confident the squad was headed in the right direction as it prepares for the 2014 Asian Cup and 2015 World Cup qualification campaign.

“It was very good to be away with the team and we achieved a great result against France, although generally our performances were inconsistent, which is something we will need to work on,” said De Reus. “It was a great opportunity to come up against European opposition ahead of the Euro-s and the girls will take a lot of confidence from that result.”

The Matildas defeated France 2-0 in Paris last month, which helped see the squad recently rise to an all-time high world ranking of eight. However they also went down to the Netherlands and Dutch club side Ado den Haag in a sign the young squad still has plenty of improvement in them.

“The whole team is very coachable,” De Reus says of the Matildas. “They are so eager to be good, to develop and to win medals.

“The average age of the team in the France game was 20.5 years, so it is an extremely young side.

“For the next year the main aim is getting game experience and playing as many matches as we can.”

With the W-League season quickly approaching, De Reus welcomed to opportunity to see the majority of her squad playing up close.

“It-s difficult to keep up with players playing overseas but it is vital they get game time wherever they can,” said De Reus.

The Matildas mentor, herself an international that was capped 43 times for the Dutch national team over a ten-year career, also rued the recent lack of internationals for the national team.

“Ideally we-d like to be playing 10-15 internationals a year so we need to continue to build our program,” she said.

De Reus has spent the past two decades coaching in various roles which include spells with Netherlands- youth teams, PSV Eindhoven and the Jordan national team. After reaching the quarter-finals at the last two World Cups, De Reus is determined to see the Matildas go at least one better next time and that all starts with the qualifiers for Canada 2015, which begin mid next year.

“You always want to do better,” said De Reus. “The girls want to do more, and they are very eager to win a medal. It is not normal to do so with such a young team. But they have very good spirit, so we will try and figure out how we will do it together.”