Former Blacktown City fan favourite James Andrew has stung his former side after guiding a 10-man Marconi Stallions to a shock 1-0 upset at Lily Homes Stadium on Saturday.
The former Blacktown attacker arrived as a half time substitute for Mateo Poljak and put the visitors ahead with a lovely finish ten minutes after the interval to help snap a five-match winless run for the Stallions.
Andrew netted 11 league goals for Blacktown City last campaign and was one of the club’s golden sons, but proved to the bane for Crittenden’s men on the occasion, who slumped to their second defeat in as many weeks.
While it might not set alarm bells ringing in Seven Hills, the manner of defeat will particularly sting for the hosts who were unable to score in consecutive matches and were dealt a lesson in pragmatism by Peter Tsekenis’ visitors.
Blacktown were patchy from the opening half and mustered their only shot on target through a Joey Gibbs header at the back post that was easily gathered by Nenad Vekic.
Marconi, who had successfully kept Blacktown at bay, offered moments of danger through dogged front pair Marko Jesic and Sean Rooney who were both defied by City stopper Stevan Savicic in the opening forty five minutes.
Having lumbered their way through the first half Crittenden’s side opened the second with a flourish and were denied by the crossbar when Devante Clut got on the end of a sweeping move at the edge of the box.
But the Stallions took the lead when Andrew latched on to a Rooney knockdown and swept the visitors into the lead with a fantastic left-footed finish.
Michael Beauchamp should’ve doubled the advantage for the Stallions shortly after but missed a Jesic corner delivery by a whisker – and later headed over from another corner as the visitors looked the seal the points.
Despite Marconi losing midfielder Sean O’Connell due to a nasty challenge on Yianni Spyrakis late on, Tsekenis’ side weathered the inevitable late rally from Blacktown with relative ease and held on to their first win since the opening day triumph over Sydney United 58.
The victorious Stallions coach was full of praise for his side following the match and said that win should serve as a platform for Marconi to continue their season.
“We came into the match with a lack of confidence based on results but we haven’t been playing that badly,” he said.
“We’ve been punished for every little mistake we’ve made and tonight we made sure that we did the little things right.
I believe we’ll get a bit of confidence from that, we’re still short of troops and the fact that we had a lot of young boys come into the squad and stand up tonight was pleasing, we get those bodies back sooner rather than later and really start to get a roll on.”
A disappointed Mark Crittenden said Blacktown need to recalibrate their standards in the week to come.
“At the end of the day they’ve going long and gone looking for the second ball and we conceded a soft goal, but I’m extremely disappointed – we’ve dropped eight points in three weeks, so it’s not good enough,” he said.
“We hit the crossbar early in the second half and if that goes in it’s probably a different game altogether but that’s football isn’t it?”
Match Stats
Blacktown City 0
Marconi Stallions 1 (Andrew 55’)
Saturday 21st of April 2018
Lily’s Football Centre, Seven Hills
Blacktown City: 8. Daniel Araujo (19. Zachary Cairncross 63’), 7. Devante Clut, 10. Connor Evans, 9. Joey Gibbs, 5. Grant Lynch, 14. Mitch Mallia, 20. Stevan Savicic, 3. Giorgio Speranza, 4. Roberto Speranza (16. Mark Rodic 80’), 22. Yianni Spyrakis, 18. Mason Versi (11. Danny Choi 60’)
Substitutes not used: 17. Dakota Askew, 1. Dylan Niski
Yellow cards: Joey Gibbs 68’
Red cards: N/A
Marconi Stallions: 5. Michael Beauchamp, 11. Judah Cleur, 10. Marko Jesic, 38. Yianni Nicolau, 23. Christopher Nunes, 6. Sean OConnell, 14. Peter Pelekanos, 15. Mateo Poljak (12. James Andrew 45’), 8. Sean Rooney, 1. Nenad Vekic, 22. Brandon Vella
Substitutes not used: 2. Braden Cheng, 21. Kristian Sekotkovski, 25. Emanuel Ponce-Farias, 41. Alex Gollan
Yellow cards: Mateo Poljak 45’
Red cards: Sean O’Connell 87’
Player ratings
3 – Michael Beauchamp (MAR)
2 – Marko Jesic (MAR)
1 – Sean Rooney (MAR)
-By National Premier Leagues NSW reporter Jacob Windon
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