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Ready to rise to the occasion

Reality hit Grace Wisnewski when she wore the Wellington Phoenix playing kit for the first time during a photoshoot on Tuesday.

‘‘It was pretty crazy to see Wisnewski on the back of the shirt,’’ she said.

The next time the 19-year-old forward wears the uniform will be when the Phoenix make their A-league Women debut against Western Sydney Wanderers at their adopted home at WIN Stadium in Wollongong tonight.

Wisnewski said the young Nix players were nervous but excited to take the field for the first time in a competitive fixture.

The game will be shown live on free-to-air TV in New Zealand and the players are eager to give a good account of themselves, knowing there will be a big audience watching back home. ‘‘It’s been a long month and a bit so we’re just excited to begin playing games.’’

The Phoenix women enter their inaugural season as massive underdogs. Coach Gemma Lewis has put together a largely inexperienced team with only four players having any previous A-league Women experience.

One of them, former Wanderers defender Talitha Kramer won’t feature against her former club, having only signed her contract yesterday. Despite their lack of experience, Lewis said the Phoenix were not shying away from the challenge and planned to take the game to Wanderers.

‘‘As a team we’ve talked about it, and we don’t really have a whole lot to lose, and that might sound silly but we just feel like we’ll be on the front foot, we can throw everything at them and be a bit more aggressive and forward thinking, to see if we can really shake them up a little bit and disrupt them.’’

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2021-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281715502898401

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