Sunday, 16 August 2015

Deserved Victory - Sydney Olympic 1-0 Sydney United

The final regular season round of the season is here. Going into this final round, there were still a few unanswered questions regarding where we would finish and who we could be potentially facing in Week 1 of the Finals. It's all been run and won now. I'll expand on this further, a bit later.

On to the game. The boys would have been eager to erase the 3-0 loss earlier in the season at Edensor Park. The match started with tackles flying in from both sets of players. It was surprising that within the first 10 minutes we already had 3 players with Yellow Cards whilst the opposition had none for some crude challenges of their own. The opposition had a few chances via set pieces but the Olympic defense dealt with them pretty easy all day. We also managed to carve out some chances in the 1st half but could not manage to find the back of the net. United's Goalkeeper was called into action to help keep the score at 0-0. Will Angel picked up an injury halfway through the 1st half and was replaced by Harris Gaitatzis. Not sure what the injury was, hopefully it was not too serious and Will is ready for next week. Not much else of note happened and we went to the break dead-locked at 0-0.

In t
he 2nd half we stepped it up a bit and began to control the match. We created further chances early on in the 2nd half and 10 or so minutes in we managed to open the scoring. We had a few shots saved in quick succession, with Harris Gaitatzis there to bury the rebound and put us 1-0 up. As the match progressed we really should have put the game to bed as we had several further chances but we were unable to capitalise and thus unable to kill the game off. With the score at 1-0 the opposition were always in the match and had a few half chances of their own to grab an equaliser. But our defense held firm and Hendo at the back was safe between the sticks. The score remained 1-0 at the full-time whistle, another deserved 3 points.

Around the grounds; Bonnyrigg put Rockdale to the sword smashing them 4-0, APIA played out an entertaining 4-4 draw with Blacktown Spartans, South Coast Wolves beat a hapless Marconi 2-0 consigning that club to almost certain relegation, Parramatta Melita ensured their safety by beating Manly 2-1 in Manly and Blacktown City beat Sutherland 4-1 to clinch the Minor Premiership.

As a result of the final round results, disappointingly we weren't able to crack it for a top 3 finish and secure the double chance in the Finals. As a result of finishing 4th we take on a rampant South Coast Wolves who finished 5th in an Elimination Final next weekend. APIA (2nd) play Bonnyrigg (3rd) in the Qualifying Final, with Blacktown City having a week off.

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