"I've killed five spiders since I've been here," Clark said.

"And I hate spiders, so that's the only downside. Other than that, it's been great. I've been keeping count."

If Clark hates spiders, you should have seen the look on her face when Canberra coach Njegosh Popovich told her it is not the spiders she should be worried about.

"It's the drop bears," Popovich said with a straight face.

Only after leading her on for a little while longer did the Canberra coach decide enough was enough for United's newest defender.

All he wants Clark to worry about is helping Canberra climb the A-League Women's ladder as they prepare to face the Melbourne Victory on the road this weekend.

"The A-League has a really great reputation, a lot of Americans come here in the off-season to play because they know it's good quality. I was excited when the opportunity came up," Clark said.

"I feel like it all happened within two weeks or so. I had a week to decide and think about it, and then another week later I got here. It was relatively quick. It was a hard decision to make, but I'm really glad that I made it and I'm here now."

Vesna Milivojevic is set to travel with the team after being cleared of any anterior cruciate ligament damage in a huge boost to Canberra's hopes of claiming back-to-back wins.

Milivojevic is the league's leading goal scorer and scored a scintillating hat-trick in United's drought-breaking 5-1 win over Brisbane which lifted them off the bottom of the table last weekend.

The Serbian international has scored eight goals this year and she looms as a major inclusion for a clash with the fourth-placed Victory.

"She's been cleared from the MRI of any ACL damage, which is fantastic. Ligaments are all intact, it's more a case of bone bruising. She's trained well and she'll be travelling," Popovich said.

"Given the fact she is our leading goal scorer at the moment, and she is the leading goal scorer in the competition, you always want to have that player available.

"We've got really good strength in terms of the players coming through as well. We defended with 10 players on the weekend with Vesna coming off, we did quite well finishing the game with six 18-year-olds on the field. We're very proud of that as a club and it means the future looks bright.

"Twenty minutes of being able to defend like that when they're desperate and they're trying to get goals just proves, I've said it before and it's an analogy we've used this week, girls have become women and they've really stepped up."