It’s that beautiful time of year for football fans, that time of year when the end of the A-League season clashes with the start of the National Premier Leagues season.
The result? Football galore.
The previous weekend marked the start of the 2015 NPL season for Victoria. South Melbourne kicked off season on Thursday night with a nail biting win over Oakleigh Cannons in front of 3500 at lakeside Stadium.
In one of the greatest non A-League matches I have ever seen, South held onto a 1-0 lead despite the Cannons continuously pressing in the last few minutes. South keeper Nikola Roganovic stole the show making a sensational goal-line clearance in the dying seconds of added time, only for Oakleigh to send the ball straight back into the goal mouth, resulting in a shot which defender Tim Mala cleared off the line.
Friday was next for a new day with plenty of games in store, or so it seemed. Unfortunately Melbourne Victory’s game in Brisbane was cancelled due to a storm. However, this left the spotlight open for the Melbourne Knights to steal the show as they hosted newly promoted Avondale FC (formerly Avondale Heights SC) at Somers Street.
Avondale shocked everyone by controlling the first half and playing havoc with Knights keeper Chris May. The Knights defence came close to conceding many times but somehow cleared the danger, however this changed on 30 minutes when Avondale’s Chris Irwin made good of a poor clearance and lobbed it over the head of a stranded May to give Avondale the lead.
Avondale then had many chances to go two up but squandered them. They hit the crossbar on two occasions and had another shot cleared off the line. The Knights came out in the second half and dominated right from the start. After 10 minutes of attacking they finally equalised with the substitute Joshua Brekalo getting on the end of a teammate’s poor shot and hitting the ball into the top left corner.
Not long after, former Heart player Adrian Zhara played Barasic through and he finished cooly from close range. Avondale stood no chance of an equaliser and their hopes were destroyed on the 93rd minute, when the Avondale goalkeeper gifted Alex Dao a goal, sparking celebrations in Knights Stadium.
Next in line was Saturday and six NPL games were played across the state. Yours truly was in attendance at the Dunstan Reserve to see St Albans smash Brunswick City 4-0. St Albans dominated from the kick off and gave Brunswick no real chance. The game’s highlight was a spectacular top corner strike by Nick Scerri towards the end of the first half.
In other games Sunshine George Cross beat the Ballarat Red Devils 1-0 in Ballarat, not a good start for a Red Devils side looking to get back into the top flight after suffering relegation last year. Meanwhile, new boys Murray United went down to Box Hill 2-3 at home, Golburn Valley smashed Richmond 6-0, Dandy City lost to The Eastern Lions and newly rebranded Bendigo City (formerly FC Bendigo) drew with Moreland City.
In the National Youth League Melbourne City defeated the Mariners Centre Of Excellence 2-0 at Epping Stadium. The only thing that was missing from this weekend so far was A-League action.
It was a lazy Sunday morning and everyone was lounging about in front of the TV, or going for a leisurely walk. But not me, I was preparing for an exciting day of football, and first up was Melbourne Victory Youth’s game against the FFA Centre of Excellence at Lakeside stadium.
Victory won the match 2-1 with a goal either side of half time, leaving the Canberra-based side on the bottom of the ladder with only one win. The Victory had all the play for the first 20 minutes until the FFA COE started some dangerous counter attacks. The Victory defence remained unbeaten, and the sides went into the break with Melbourne leading 1-0.
In the second half Victory controlled most of the possession, firing in many shots on the COE goal, this finally payed off on the 52nd minute when poor defending gifted Melbourne a goal. The away side then turned the tables and the flow of the game, managing a goal on 85 minutes. But it was too little too late.
A-League fans finally got their turn when Melbourne City played out a stalemate against Perth Glory in front of under 7000 at AAMI Park. The game was a competitive one with no side controlling the flow of the play for more than a couple minutes. City seemed most likely to score early on after numerous counters, the closest they got was Josh Kennedy’s strike from close range which just went over the top of Danny Vukovic’s goal.
Perth soon switched the momentum but were unable to get a proper chance on goal. Just after the restart Kew Jaliens was found unmarked from a free kick and his glancing header went narrowly wide, while minutes later Andy Keogh leapt high into the air to connect with a header, which flew across the face of Redmayne’s line.
As the game wore on City pressed but could not find a winner, despite having all the play towards the end of the game. Perth keeper Vukovic must be applauded for keeping cool in the finals minutes of the game were he was under serious pressure from the City attackers.
What a weekend it was indeed in Victorian football.
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