In amongst the crazy scenes post-match after the A-League Women's grand final were a couple of Shellharbour sisters who had just made their dreams come true.
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The Shellharbour junior products both played a crucial role in the premiership/championship double for Sydney FC this season, culminating in a 4-0 grand final victory on Sunday against league newcomers Western United.
Jynaya made her debut in the early part of the season, before her younger sister Indiana was brought into the side off the bench midway through the campaign.
It has been a whirlwind recent months for Indiana in particular.
In this season alone the youngest Dos Santos has made her A-Leagues debut - both off the bench and then starting - and became Sydney FC's youngest ever goalscorer at 15 years and 170 days old.
By making an appearance off the bench in the latter stages of the match, she became the youngest ever player to feature in an A-League Women's grand final at 15 years and 247 days old.
In the wake of a Sky Blue victory and all the local accolades was an extremely proud president of Shellharbour JFC.
Yani Sekuloski said to see Shellharbour juniors strutting their stuff on the national stage would be a great inspiration to the current crop of players.
"It's a great achievement and it shows hard work does pay off," he said.
"It gives the kids something to look forward to playing for the future. The [Dos Santos] girls were only at the club three or four years ago. There's no words in the world to say how proud I am.
It gives the kids something to look forward to playing for the future.
- Yani Sekuloski
"We call her [Indiana] the smiling assassin and you could just see it with that great big smile she had when she came onto the pitch at the end."
The two sisters spoke to the Mercury prior to the grand final victory and said that they were both equally proud of one another.
"It's been a dream come true for both of us. We've been working so hard for this opportunity," Jynaya said.
"Just to see my sister out there playing is good because it's all of our hard work that is paying off."
Indiana shared her sister's sentiment.
"It's so cool because you don't usually see sisters playing on the same team. Especially at A-League level," she added.
In their sixth consecutive grand final, Sydney snapped a three-year championship losing streak to add a fourth piece of silverware to their collection alongside their five premierships, cementing the club as the most successful in the league.
Figtree's Mackenzie Hawkesby got an assist to her name for the first goal after delivering a peach of a cross via a corner onto the head of US import Madison Haley who made no mistake.
"I think we'll retain a lot of our players but end of the day I think we've left a pretty good legacy," she said post-match.
Hawkesby is signed for next season but will likely attract attention from suitors while Rachel Lowe was uncertain whether she would return but is in talks about her future.
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Jordan Warren
Illawarra Mercury sports journalist. Feel free to get in touch jordan.warren@austcommunitymedia.com.au.
Illawarra Mercury sports journalist. Feel free to get in touch jordan.warren@austcommunitymedia.com.au.
