Sydney Olympic 3-3 Blacktown City

Another home match, another poor start and another match where we found ourselves in the position of having to chase a result at home, where after 2 matches now, we have not managed to pick up the 3 points.

It was a disastrous start, as within the first 15 minutes we found ourselves 2-0 down. The first goal was essentially a free header from a poorly defended corner and the second came via a rare mistake by Paul Henderson, who looked to have made a straight forward save, before dropping the ball and allowing Blacktown to tap in for their 2nd goal of the afternoon.

We were not playing all that poorly, but we were just caught on the hop by an always well prepared and opportunistic team. Meaning we once more had to dig deep to get anything from the match.

There was a glimmer of hope for Sydney Olympic just before half-time, thanks to a goal of the season contender by Nikola Kuleski, who knocked in a beautiful freekick from about 25m out to claw a goal back.

We had further great chances just before the half-time break to dramatically pull level, but some poor finishing meant it was not to be and so we headed to the half-time break trailing 2-1.

Not even 30 seconds had passed into the second-half before we found an equaliser, a nice through ball found Alejandro Sanchez who made no mistake to make it 2-2 and open his account for the season.

Things looked to have been back on track and we could now just focus on getting into a rhythm in the second-half and search for a winner. But, only 5 minutes after we had equalised, we went behind once again, courtesy of a speculative long-range effort that beat Paul Henderson. We were up against it again.

On the positive front, we never dropped our heads and continued to keep working hard and we were rewarded around 10 minutes later, as a well worked move was finished off well by Jason Madonis to bring the score back to 3-3.

In the final 30 minutes, we had several golden opportunities to find a winner, but it never came and we had to settle for a 3-3 result.

We paid for our poor start and it is something we cannot afford to keep doing, as it is far too difficult in this League, to continually have to fight back to get results and it will eventually, become a drain on the players as the season progresses.

The fighting spirit shown is admirable, but we must be better and be switched on from the opening minutes of matches.

In terms of the Club Championship, the U18s got pumped 6-0, while the U20s picked up a 3-1 win.

Round 4 is on Sunday March 31, we travel to face the always difficult Hakoah Sydney City-East at Hensley Athletic Field, Eastgardens, Kick-Off is at 5pm.

On Wednesday Night, April 3, is our rescheduled Round 2 match away to the Mount Druitt Town Rangers, at Popondetta Park in Emerton, Kick-Off is at 7.30pm.

On the Sydney Olympic Girls side of things, they drew 2-2 with Sydney University, who are usually the heavy hitters in this League. It has been a good start for Sydney Olympic in its debut season in NPL 1, starting off with 2 wins and 1 draw after 3 rounds.