When you’re on top, there’s only one direction to go.

Wangaratta City FC’s division two women’s soccer squad is working hard to make sure the drop off comes after the season, with the Lady Devils currently enjoying a penthouse view from atop the ladder.

The Lady Devils have won every game they’ve played this year, barring two draws, the first of which came against the Albury Hotspurs back in early May, and with the yellow army descending on South Wangaratta this weekend, the encounter looms as a danger match.

Women’s coach Kristy Mellor is acutely aware they are the hunted of the competition, with the other nine teams gunning to hand the Devils their first loss of 2026.

“I think teams want to get us,” she said.

“We’re still travelling really well, it was a really tough game on Sunday against Heart [2-1 win].

“It felt like they really took it to us, it felt like a final, they upped it to that level.”

The Lady Devils enjoy a six-point lead over Albury Hotspurs, with a bye and three matches left in their home and away season.

Mellor said while it would be nice to continue through to the finals without losing a game, how they were playing together was more important.

“We’ve got a little bit of a buffer, we can afford to drop a game – we don’t want to, but we can afford to, although that’s certainly not what I’ll be saying to the players,” she said.

“How nice would it be? But I can’t really think like that – if I thought like that, I would only put on my best players, and I can’t do that, that’s not the coach I am.

“I think all of our players are really important and there’s been massive development from our less-experienced players this year.

“On Sunday and in the finals, I’ll be rotating the players regardless of how good a player they are, that’s the kind of coach I am.

“We’ve got two under 16 girls coming up through, we’ve got a number of girls who had never played football before, but they need the experience during the season then to be able to play well in the finals and feel what that pressure’s like.

“It’ll be an equal team effort, we’ll all be having a go this Sunday.

“I’d love to go undefeated, it would be a massive milestone, but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t.”

Up against the second-ranked side in the competition, Mellor said they were anticipating a proper challenge.

“Hotspurs are always hard to play, always, because they’re a clever footballing team, so we have to be more clever,” she said.

“We did play them and drew earlier in the year, and from that experience I now know the players to look for, I know the playmakers, I know who scored the goals.

“We’re going to have a bit of a strategy around that, maybe a bit of man-marking but nothing too intense, just knowing who their scorers are and making sure we’ve always got someone on them to disrupt the pass.

“They will bring their strongest team they can and they will take it to us, absolutely.

“We’ll most likely play Hotspurs at some point in the finals, so we’ll have to be really clever about how we play them – we’ll probably start quite defensively and then see how we go.”

The Lady Devils take on Albury Hotspurs from 9.30am this Sunday 2 August at South Wangaratta Recreation Reserve.

Meanwhile, it’s a mid-table showdown in the division one men’s competition when the sixth-placed Devils host fifth-ranked Hotspurs from 3pm.