Ten-man Suns defeat Olympic in thriller
ROCKDALE City Suns overcame Sydney Olympic at a packed Ilinden Sports Centre despite playing the entire second half with only ten players after the sending off of goalkeeper Ivan Necevski just before the break.
After the game player-coach of the Rockdale City Suns Paul Reid stated that he was somewhat apprehensive after losing a player at such a crucial time.
“I thought that we were a little bit hard done by really but these things happen in football and that’s what I said to the boys at halftime," he said.
"We said that if we’d stick to the game plan,that we’d end up with opportunities and that’s what happened.”
The first salvo of the game arrived in the fifth minute when William Angel shot wide of the intended target for the visitors.
Rockdale City Suns waited a while but their first chance in the 18th minute was almost the opening goal of the game.
It was a lovely through ball that found Marko Jesic in box and his shot brought out the best in young goalkeeper John Dimitrakas who parried the ball into the path of Toufic Alameddine who had his final shot wonderfully smothered by Leigh Egger in defence.
Midway through first half Alec Urosevski went charging down the right-hand flank and, with a nice finish, sent the ball across the entire face of goal and just wide of the mark.
In the 26th minute a cross from the right by Takuya Murayama found Urosevski unmarked in the box and his shot was destined to end up in the bottom left hand corner of the goal until a miraculous save by Dimitrakas denied him. It was wonderful work indeed from the young shot-stopper for the visitors.
Just before the break Urosevski made his way infield and unleashed a powerful drive that was just wide of the mark. The best player from last week’s game against Marconi was on the boil again for the Suns in this clash against Sydney Olympic.
Just before the break Necevski was sent off by referee Kurt Ams for a last-man foul outside the box on Dimitri Hatzimouratis. The former Sydney FC custodian made the lonely trek off the field and left his side to face the second half with only ten players.
Rockdale City Suns took the lead ten minutes into the second stanza of play when a free-kick from Marko Jesic was deflected off the wall into the path of Urosevski who, from close range, placed the ball in the back of the net.
Midway through the half Urosevski scored another great goal to double the lead for Rockdale City Suns when he charged through the entire Sydney Olympic defence and unleashed a shot that ended up in the bottom left hand corner of the net. It seemed that the Olympic players had paused to allow Urosevski to slalom past them all with his great run.
With only ten minutes left on the clock Michael Gaitatzis from a corner tested young replacement goalkeeper Aleksandar Visnic who beautifully turned the ball over the crossbar for a corner. It was the closest that the visitors had come in the second half.
Right at the death a long, looping cross from the left by Nikolas Tsattalios reached Angel at the far post and his shot came perilously close to hitting the net but was prevented from doing so by the woodwork.
In stoppage time Harris Gaitatzis’ shot surprised all and ended up in the back of the net to give Sydney Olympic a glimmer of hope, but in reality it was too little too late for the visitors.
Paul Reid was justifiably happy with the three points for the third week in a row.
“To win the game was a massive result for us and all credit goes to the boys because they stuck to the game plan in the second half and they worked their socks off,” he said.
“To be honest Olympic scored their one goal but realistically they didn’t put us under as much pressure as we expected being down to ten men.”
Over in the Sydney Olympic dressing room coach Grant Lee was disappointed to lose the game.
“It was our own fault in the first goal to give a free-kick away and not track runners,” he said.
“It’s no good dominating and keeping possession if you don’t score goals. For the all the possession that we had, we didn’t really realistically put them under any real pressure.
"We needed to make them do something different and that’s disappointing that we didn’t.”
Match Stats
Rockdale City Suns 2 (Urosevski 55’, 68’)
Sydney Olympic 1 (H Gaitatzis 90+1′)
Sunday 28th June 2015
Ilinden Sports Centre, Rockdale
Referee: Kurt Ams
Assistant Referees: Mitchell Clark, Joon Park
Fourth Official: Tristan Harris
Rockdale City Suns: Necevski, Alameddine (Visnic 44′), El Hafiane, Hesketh, Jesic, Petkovski, Reid (Oygur 14′), P.Savor, Murayama, Urosevski, Macallister (Tanoski 59′)
Substitutes not used: Codrea, Iwamoto
Yellow Cards: Petkovski 11’
Red Cards: Necevski 45’
Sydney Olympic: Dimitrakas, Angel, Danaskos (Tsattalios 66′), Egger, H.Gaitatzis, Hatzimouratis (M Gaitatzis 75′), Markovic, Shirai, Soeda, Sorge, Spyrakis (Keir 73′)
Substitutes not used: Hooper, Petrovski
Yellow Cards: Sorge 53’
– by Joe Russo, PS4 National Premier Leagues NSW Men’s 1 Reporter, at Ilinden Sports Centre
