Finals Fever - Sydney Olympic 2-0 South Coast Wolves

After 22 rounds of the home and away season, we finished in 4th spot. We are now effectively in a new competition. First past the post is a great achievement, but in Australia, the Finals Series and winning the Grand Final rules the roost. So with that, we began our Finals Series campaign this afternoon against the team who had finished the regular season in 5th spot, the South Coast Wolves, in a sudden death Elimination Final.

A gloomy Sydney day welcomed the supporters and players onto Lambert Park for the contest. We started the match well, immediately gaining a foot-hold in the contest and dominating the match from the outset. We were looking dangerous all over the park as we took the game to the Wolves. This was highlighted by the fact we created chance after chance inside the first 20 minutes of the contest. The supporters who made it out to Leichhardt were beginning to wonder if we were ever going to capitalise on our domination, they didn't have to wait long as Dimi Hatzimouratis finished off some nice work from Michael Gaitatzis down the flank to put the ball away and send us 1-0 up and give us a well deserved lead. We had a couple more chances before half-time to extend our lead but it was not to be, and we went to the break leading 1-0.

As expected, the beginning of the 2nd half saw the Wolves come out looking to find an equaliser to get back into the contest. The 2nd half see-sawed back and forth as Wolves were pushing for their goal and we were in turn hitting them on the counter-attack, which made it a very entertaining game to watch. Although the Wolves were getting into the match I don't recall them having more than 1 clear cut opportunity to score during the 2nd half. This was contrary to ourselves who continued to create chances, but just unable to find the killer 2nd goal. 25 minutes into the 2nd half, Scott Balderson and Michael Gaitatzis were replaced by the returning Niko Tsattalios and Go Shirai respectively. Wolves were still looking for the equalising goal, a goal would come but it would be Olympic's goal, a great ball from Taiga Soeda found Harris Gaitatzis in space, who dribbled it into the box and smashed his shot passed the Wolves Goalkeeper to send the Olympic supporters into delirium. The 2nd goal kicked the stuffing out of the Wolves players who had no more left to give. 10 or so minutes later the full-time whistle was blown and we had got the job done courtesy of a 2-0 win.

Wolves were coming off the back of several weeks of effectively Finals Football and it looked like they had run their race by the time they got to the Finals, but it was a good effort from them given where they were during the mid-way part of the season to even make the top 5. For us we look to be in good form and playing some good football. Hopefully the boys can keep it going for 3 more weeks.

In today's other Finals match, APIA Leichhardt lost 3-1 at home to the Bonnyrigg White Eagles. Which means we will be in another Elimination Final next week at Lambert Park to face APIA Leichhardt.