Newcastle Olympic coach Harmonie Attwill will be forced to pull together a new-look defence after captain and centre-back Sophie O'Brien sustained a season-ending Achilles injury at training on Tuesday night.
O'Brien was key to Olympic's success in claiming the premiership-championship double last year and is widely regarded as one of the competition's strongest central defenders.
"Sophie is an exceptional leader on and off the field," Attwill told the Newcastle Herald.
"She will be a tremendous loss for our team. Despite the disappointment, she will remain an active part of our group and continue to be a positive presence for the squad."
O'Brien will be one of three key players out for Olympic when they meet Warners Bay in round eight of Newcastle Herald Women's Premier League at John Street Oval on Sunday.
Attacking player Keea Parrish is expected to be sidelined for eight to 10 weeks with a hamstring injury sustained in Olympic's 3-2 win over Adamstown last round.
Striker and last year's Herald WPL player of the year Jemma House is serving a one-match suspension after being sent off for two yellow card offences against Rosebud.
The match is an important one for both sides. Olympic are second with 18 points. They were one behind unbeaten league leaders Broadmeadow going into the round. Magic, play fourth-placed Maitland on Friday night. Warners Bay are third on 13.
Olympic were comfortable 5-1 victors over the Panthers in round one. But it is Warners Bay's only loss of the season.
The Panthers picked up former W-League player Tara Pender this month and have hit some form in recent weeks, thrashing Adamstown 7-1 in round six before becoming the first team to take points off Magic this season in a 2-2 draw last weekend.
"They've done really well the past couple of weeks and we don't anticipate a similar scoreline," Attwill said.
Former W-League centre-back Stacey Day, who had a knee injury last year and in pre-season, has been training with Olympic and is an obvious replacement for O'Brien but is unavailable this weekend due to work.
Warners Bay coach Craig Atkins said this match provided an opportunity "to make amends for that round-one game".
"We were really in the battle against Magic," Atkins said. "The girls are really working hard for each other and the results are starting to show.
"It's a great opportunity to be playing the top two teams two weeks in a row; that really gives you an opportunity to measure up and we just need to try to put in a repeat performance of what we did last week.
"There's still plenty to work on. But the character, the grit, the fight of the girls was there to see last round and they played for 90 minutes, which was great."
Charlestown coach Niko Papaspiropoulos will welcome the return of centre-back May Bailey and wide attacking player Jess Gentle as Azzurri eye maximum points from a weekend double-header against Mid Coast.
The two sides meet at Lisle Carr Oval on Saturday in a rescheduled round-one match then play in Taree on Sunday.
Charlestown improved to six points and sixth place with a 2-0 win over New Lambton last weekend. Mid Coast (4) are also desperate for points.
"After a run of a few tough games, mentally to get back to winning ways is good and having a clean sheet adds a little bit more confidence and positivity in the squad," Papaspiropoulos said.
"There's the potential that points could be taken off teams that we're in contention with for that third or fourth spot, so it's an important double-header.
"Last year it was the double-header that impacted the season. We went from minor premiers to fourth essentially, so we don't want to have a bogey weekend again against them."
Adamstown coach Ryan Campbell said Rosebud (7), who are fifth, need to take as many points as they can from their next four outings, starting against last-placed New Lambton (0) at Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility on Saturday night. It starts a run where they go up against other teams who appear to be vying for fourth place at the moment before then facing top-three sides Magic, Warners Bay and Olympic again.
"Hopefully we can do well enough to get a result and get a bit of confidence," Campbell said.
"We've got these four games then we've got Broadmeadow, Warners Bay and Olympic, so you need to get 10 to 12 points in these games so that when you come up against those top three you're not relying on getting results in those matches. It's pretty important that we get results in these ones."
Rosebud beat New Lambton 2-0 in round one but the Eagles have since recruited former W-League striker Jenna Kingsley.
