Knox City 1 Northcote City 1
A draw was a fair result in this match played in welcome rain on a pitch that has been decimated by the drought. One of the best surfaces in Victoria has been reduced to an unsightly arena.
Knox City had five seventeen year olds playing their first senior game in the squad. Added to three eighteen year olds, this makes it one of the youngest Knox sides in many a long year.
Robert Brian in the Northcote goal was the first keeper to be called on as he made a full length save in the tenth minute and from the resultant corner made another fine stop to deny Nick Veljovic’s header.
Northcote’s Player Coach, Peter Tsolakis was enjoying a huge amount of freedom in the middle of the park and his prompting created a number of openings for the visitors. Mark Jorgensen in the Knox goal was forced to punch clear on three occasions as the experienced Northcote side sought to dominate.
However, it was the home side which took the lead in the 39th minute when a ball was played in to first gamer Koray Suat, who evaded two tackles to send a curling shot past Brian into the corner of the net.
The lead lasted all of 1 minute as Northcote struck back immediately, albeit that there was an element of luck about the goal. Nixon picked up the ball just outside the area, turned inside his man and shot. The ball took a double deflection, looping over the stranded Jorgensen for the equaliser.
Northcote came out for the second half in determined fashion and dominated the game for the first fifteen minutes of the second half as they stretched the Knox defence with intelligent play. Jorgensen was called on to make one excellent full-length save, but in the main the Knox defence was well marshalled by new signing Darko Perazic and Peter Veljovic, who is back at the club for his third stint.
The second part of this half was even as both side pushed for the winner. Suat had another opportunity when he latched on to a poor goal kick but Brian got down well to save. Jack Hingert made a couple of electrifying runs down the right wing, the first of which resulted in a shot from a tight angle that went agonisingly wide. The visitors forced a number of corners but could not convert them.
In the end both sides had to settle for a point as time ran out.
Knox City: M. Jorgensen, G. Dos Santos, P. Veljovic, D. Perazic, G. Moon, J. Hingert, N. Giannopoulos (M. Coates – 87th), H. Swami, D. Veljovic (M. Miladi – 69th), N. Veljovic, K.Suat (M. Hoogendyk – 78th). Subs not used – E. Becirovic, K. McEvoy.
Northcote City: R. Brian, G. Papadopoulos, T. Papadopoulos, J. Lazaris, N. Georgakopoulos, J. Theofilopoulos, P. Tsolakis (A. Rauf – 78th), D. Archimandritis, H. Kinigopoulos, T. Rixon, J. Triantopoulos (S. Vourgaslis – 62nd). Subs not used – P. Laskis, C. Theodoridis. |
