When not if. That was the statement on the lips of nearly every person who watched the National Premier League Women’s competition in 2025 as Belconnen United continued their imperious march towards yet another piece of silverware, and redemption for their last-gasp loss in the race for the 2024 title.
That the League Championship crown was officially decided in Round 18 when Pascale La Hei struck the only goal of the game in a 1-0 win over Canberra Croatia at McKellar Park was only underlining what the rest of the division already knew. The Blue Devils of 2025 were peerless.
This was no one person show, although the contribution of striker Keira Bobbin was eye-catching, the fleet-footed forward ending the season with a Golden Boot winning tally of twenty-six goals and a pile of assists that helped Belconnen see seventeen different names on the league scoresheet, not including own goals!
Alyssa Di-Campli racked up fourteen of the league high 120 struck by Belconnen, before leaving for College in the USA, Talia Backhouse, in essence her replacement, weighing in with eleven in next to no time. In all five players, including midfielder Anneke Corry and defender Bronte Pyke hit double figures.
For Pyke it was another season of demonstrating her outstanding ability at both ends of the park, the goals simply another asset to her incredible skillset that marks her as the prototypical modern full-back. Defensively, she was equally as sound and part of a defence that conceded a meagre eleven goals.
Ailish McDonagh, a rock-solid central defender, was the mainstay of that defensive challenge, ably assisted by a variety of players who also stood out in the Blue Devils watertight rearguard. The defensive wall was part of the reason that new goalkeeper Matilde Laurel-Tighe, and late season replacement Claire Joseph, were largely untroubled.
Further forward there was creativity in abundance led by a storming season for Corry. The new signing in the summer hit the ground running and continued apace, including the winning goal that brought a third consecutive Federation Cup to the Belconnen trophy cabinet in June.
In total Scott Conlon used thirty-one players through the 2025 league season, each playing their part. The domination that the Blue Devils had was perhaps beautifully illustrated by Liliana Altamore. The impact substitute started one game and was called off the bench seven times and responded by scoring six goals.
In a nineteen-game season, only eleven players started in ten or more matches, twenty-six of the squad coming off the bench at one stage or another during the year. This was an achievement for the whole squad.
On seventeen occasions the team scored four goals or more across both league and cup competitions, hitting double figures in four matches, and winning every single match they played in the nineteen league and three cup matches in which they took to the playing fields of Canberra.
Oh, and they began the season by collecting the Charity Shield of course. A 3-0 opening win over last year’s nearest rivals, Canberra Olympic, on the synthetic field at Melrose setting the standard for the rest of the campaign. That Belconnen were able to continue to follow that lead, and arguably in some cases, improve on it, was remarkable.
It wasn’t all one-way traffic. At 0-2 down in the Federation Cup Semi-Final to Olympic the cup run looked done only for substitute Pearl Tein to emerge from the bench and score twice in the final five minutes to force extra-time from where defender Lisa Cary struck the knockout blow.
Croatia also had Belconnen hearts in mouths with a superlative come from behind first-half at Kaleen Enclosed in Round 3. From 2-0 up and looking serene, to 2-3 down before the break tested Blue Devils resolve. Not for the first time, they showed they had the resilience to go along with the ability After all, it’s in a Champions DNA.
