Sydney Olympic 3-1 Sutherland Sharks

Sydney Olympic has kept its hopes of claiming the Minor Premiership alive, after a dominant victory at home to the Sutherland Sharks at Belmore Sports Ground on Sunday afternoon. We were by far the better side and deserved the victory.

It was an uneventful opening 10 or so minutes of the match and there was a distinct lack of intensity from both sides early on. There were no real clear-cut chances in the opening stages of the first-half until the opposition managed to carve one out after the initial dull period, which luckily for us came to nothing. After this uninspiring spell, we managed to wake up and get ourselves into gear and the final 20 minutes of the first-half was all Sydney Olympic. We fired a few warning shots at Sutherland’s goal, before we finally opened the scoring thanks to a well worked team move and a good finish from Alejandro Sanchez. Very soon after Sanchez could have had his 2nd for the afternoon only for him to miss the target. Sutherland had 1 good chance before half-time but it was us who finished the first-half the far better side, and we were unlucky not to go into the half-time break leading by more, but the signs were there that there would be more goals in the second-half.

We continued in the second-half from where we left off in the first-half, as we created a couple of half chances in the early stages, before we finally buried one to double our lead, with Alejandro Sanchez finishing well again to send us into a 2-0 lead. With that 2nd goal, we looked like we had wrapped it up, we would be in for a comfortable rest of the afternoon and cruise to the victory. But that was knocked on the head very quickly, as Sutherland hit back straight away, after former Sydney Olympic player Adrian Vranic pulled a goal back after a scramble inside the box, meaning it was game on once again. Thankfully we did not drop our heads after we conceded and went right back to work, looking for more goals and 10 minutes after we had conceded, we restored our 2-goal lead as Max Burgess finished off his chance well to make it 3-1. We created several more opportunities in the closing stages of the match, but we were not clinical enough in front of goal and we could not add to our lead. At the full-time whistle we had to be satisfied with the 3-1 victory.

So we did what was needed on Sunday to keep the pressure on at the top of the table. It wasn’t our best performance but we pushed through to claim the vital 3 points. It makes for a very interesting finish to the season now.

As a result of the weekend scores, we find ourselves equal 1st, equal on 42 points with APIA Leichhardt, with 2 rounds remaining in the race for the Minor Premiership. We will need a bit of luck and some results to go our way if we are to leapfrog APIA into 1st, as
we have a significantly inferior goal differential and have the much tougher schedule to end the regular season.

In the Club Championship, the U18s lost 3-0 and the U20s lost 1-0.

Our next match is this Sunday Afternoon, August 5. A tough one against the Wollongong Wolves away in Wollongong, at Hooka Creek Park, Berkeley. Kick-Off is at 3pm.