GV Suns graduate James Nieuwenhuizen speaks about his whirlwind senior debut for Melbourne City

The Shepparton product and Goulburn Valley Suns graduate spent a fifth of his life preparing for his professional debut and, on August 3, it finally arrived.

Was it everything he hoped it would be?

In a word, no.

Yet the 20-year-old goalkeeper made his parents, his region, and most importantly, himself proud as he stepped out for Melbourne City’s senior side in its 5-4 defeat in the Australia Cup Round of 32 clash against Perth Glory.

“It’s been a long time waiting; I’ve been training now with the first team for four years,” Nieuwenhuizen said.

“You build up that first game on a pedestal where you want it to be perfect; you want it to be all these things and then it happened.

“The first five, 10 minutes felt a bit like a ‘deer in the headlights’ type of thing, but as you get used to the game you realise it’s not that different and you’re there for a reason.

“You’re not playing because they just want to give you a run — they back you to play.

“I still enjoyed it, I’m still proud and happy to have done it, but I’m just frustrated in the way it resulted; a 5-4 shoot-out and a loss away at Perth just compounded it.”

Life comes at you fast and, in Nieuwenhuizen’s case, so did the ball off the Glory players’ boots and heads.

Perth’s Abdelelah Faisal whipped one past the Shepparton shot-stopper’s near post less than three minutes into the match, a cardinal sin of the custodian’s code.

It signalled one thing: welcome to the big leagues, son.

City hit back to restore parity before half-time, but two minutes after the main break it was repeat business as Glory went ahead with a thumping strike.

Nieuwenhuizen’s teammates further up the pitch then went on a tear and slotted the following three goals to sit 4-2 up with 25 minutes left to play.

However, this game’s drama had only really begun.

Glory converted two peach headers — the latter arriving in the 88th minute — to send the game to extra time and, in a crushing moment for Nieuwenhuizen, Perth’s Nathanael Blair poked home the winner in the 115th minute.

Upon reflecting on his debut, the former Sun said, “if I’d made my debut a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have dealt with it as well’’.

“Over the last six months or so, I’ve worked closely with sports psych Andy Brennan and he’s helped heaps,” Nieuwenhuizen said.

“Just talking about it, now I’m in a position where something happens, you move on.

“You forget about it, you reset and for me, just working on shifting that approach to games in each moment is unique and separate in it’s own right.

“You might’ve conceded in the second minute, but now you’ve got another 88 minutes plus stoppage time to do something else.”

Nieuwenhuizen’s sturdy mindset has been forged on the grindstone of elite training at City.

Gloving up five to six days a week at Casey Fields gives the young goalie plenty of practice to iron out the mistakes and prepare for matches.

But with City’s Australia Cup exit, Nieuwenhuizen will have to wait a while longer for his next run out in sky blue.

“We were all looking forward to the cup and now we’re out of the cup, and now it means instead of the 10 weeks leading up to the A-League season having games every couple of weeks, we’re going to be just running and playing friendlies instead which isn’t as fun as what competitive games are,” he said.

“I’ve been in a few pre-seasons now, so you know what you’re in for and you know it’s a part of it — you get out what you put in as well.”

So what’s next for the Shepparton sensation?

Nieuwenhuizen’s debut for City’s senior side makes him the fourth Goulburn Valley product to feature for an A-League men’s side in the past four years after Cobram’s Gianluca Iannucci (Melbourne Victory) and Shepparton’s Alou and Garang Kuol (Central Coast Mariners), and this season, he wants more minutes in between the sticks.

“It’s really general and I’ve probably had the same goal for the last four years, but it’s just to play as many minutes as possible with the first team,” he said.

“Be that number one for the team and help the team win — that’s probably the main thing.

“Last year we probably had a bit of a down year for the club’s standards, so it’s about getting back to the illustrious levels that we set a couple of years ago.

“We’ve got two trophies to play for now, so I think the goal is to win that and hopefully put together a few nice performances along the way myself.

“Of course the dream is also to play for Australia, but I know the first step to that is playing week in, week out at Melbourne City, so that’s probably the goal.”

Lastly, Nieuwenhuizen saved thanks for those who’ve aided him along the way to making his professional debut.

“It’s probably good to say a few thank yous to Mum and Dad and the family back home, the little family in the house I live in down here and all the people connected to football up there as well involved at the GV Suns,“ he said.

“There’s a good little crop coming through — those people up there helped me and now they’re helping my little brother which is cool to see.”