Coronavirus was not enough to deter Canberra Olympic’s Lara Burdett from playing football. In fact, it was the opposite, at the same time when many other football players decided to leave the game.

 

After taking a year off in 2019, Burdett returned to the pitch in 2020 facing a very different football community to what she left.

 

Burdett was with the Monaro Panthers in 2018, but the defensive midfielder made the move back to her junior club in 2021 after missing the club environment at Canberra Olympic.

 

“I decided to get back into it because I realised how much I missed it. I’d come off a few years of not playing the greatest games. We [Monaro] were losing quite a bit, and at the time I was a bit disheartened,” she said.

 

“When COVID shut my job down, I was able to go back and play soccer again which was really something I was wanting to do the whole time.

 

“The team I’m in now, we have really good morale. We are pretty tight knit as well, so I definitely missed working with the team and the fitness side of things as well.

 

“We’ve got a really good coach at the moment and our team is getting better week by week. It’s good to see the team grow. I just missed being in a team environment and having a kick around.”

 

Despite a rocky start to the season, the Canberra Olympic women’s team is hoping for a top four spot. To achieve this, Lara believes consistency and goal difference is key to moving forward.

 

“Consistency is something that we’ve been focusing on. The games where we can win by large margins, we really need to get our goal difference up,” she said.

 

“Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes in the early rounds. I guess you can say it’s a bit of a wakeup call.

 

“We want to be comfortably in the top four and not let it come down to goal difference. Currently, goal difference is what separates us from the top four.”

 

This weekend, Olympic play the West Canberra Wanderers whom they defeated 2-1 away in the opening round of the season. Burdett is confident but recognises the challenge that the Wanderers bring.

 

“[West Canberra] has shown that they are a really tough side. They’ve stepped up a lot this year, they’re a team that's going to be a real competitor to us, she said”

 

“We’re going into this weekend knowing it’s going to be a really tough game that we are going to have to win.”

 

Kickoff between Canberra Olympic and West Canberra Wanderers is this Sunday 2:30pm at O’Connor Enclosed Oval.