We almost have to pinch ourselves at what we are
seeing so far this season. The team is absolutely in top form and brushing
aside every adversary at this point in time. And it was no different on
Saturday Night, as we professionally and clinically swept aside Sydney United
at Edensor Park, in what was another brilliant display.
It was a cagey opening to this Sydney Derby as both sides felt each other out,
but pretty soon we seized control of the contest and would go on to dominate
the first-half. Despite our dominance and plethora of chances, we would take
the lead via a defensive error, which saw Alejandro Sanchez put through on goal
and he calmly put away his chance, continuing his great form of 2018 to put us
up 1-0 up with around 20 minutes gone. After we managed to open the scoring, we
kicked it up a few gears looking for our 2nd goal. We had a multitude of
chances throughout the first-half as William Angel, Max Burgess, Radovan
Pavicevic all should have scored goals in what was complete dominance from us.
But it would be Tom Whiteside who would grab our 2nd of the night as his
left-foot volley took a slight deflection before smashing into the back of the
net and we were cruising at 2-0 up, he is becoming a goal-scoring machine. We continued
to dominate in the final stages of the first-half and if we had our shooting
boots on, we would have been at least 4 or 5 nil up at the half-time break, but
we had to settle for the 2-0 lead.
Before we had to time to settle into the second-half, a melee had erupted after
we had spurned an early chance. A Sydney United player then proceeded to push
Sanchez to the ground on several occasions for reasons we don’t know. The
referee sent the Sydney United player off which sparked the melee and 2 or 3
minutes of on-field rubbish. This was a clear attempt by them to put us off our
game, as they were being thoroughly outplayed and thus tried the rough stuff
only for that to also backfire. For the rest of the second-half we would be up
against 10 men. This incident seemed to have a negative effect on us as despite
now having the man advantage and being 2-0 up, we retreated into our shell for
the next portion of the match. Sydney United started to control the game and
had more of the ball, with us resorting to counter-attacks, which by the way
should have resulted in us putting the game to bed if we had managed to finish
off the opportunities. Although the opposition huffed and puffed throughout
that second-half, they really didn’t create too many clear-cut chances and as
the full-time whistle went, we had recorded another good victory.
So it was another fantastic display from Sydney Olympic as we continued our
winning run and continue to play good football. Defensively we are looking very
solid also. Confidence would be sky-high at the moment.
This match wrapped up the first half of the 2018 season, time sure does fly. 9
Wins, 1 Draw, 1 Loss. We will be doing extremely well to match that in the
second half of the season and we all hope that it happens.
In the Club Championship, the U18s copped a 3-0 loss and the U20s also had a
loss, going down 3-1.
In our Round 6 FFA Cup Qualifier against Hawkesbury City from last Wednesday
Night, plenty of younger players got a run, but we still had enough quality on
the park to get through to the next round. We rode our luck at different stages
during the match but we got the job done which is what mattered. Now we look
forward to seeing who we draw for Round 7, which is the final Qualifying round
before the main FFA Cup draw.
For our next match, we are back out to Fairfield this Saturday Night May 26, to
take on the Bonnyrigg White Eagles in another vital match. It will be at the
Bonnyrigg Sports Club, Kick-Off at 7pm.
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