Knox City v Stonnington

Knox City 2 Stonnington City 1 (Half-time 0-1)

Knox City kept their faint promotion hopes alive with a gutsy come from behind win at home to Stonnington City at Egan Lee Reserve. Two goals in the last 15 minutes cancelled out an early goal to the visitors, who desperately needed to pick up points to stay clear of the relegation zone.

This was an entertaining game with its fair share of controversy. Knox had a perfectly good looking goal ruled out just on the stroke of half-time, whilst their equaliser looked to be scored from an offside position, albeit that the referee appeared to miss a hand ball by a Stonnington defender in the penalty area in the lead up play.

Knox had more of the play territorially, particularly in the second half when they spent long periods camped in the visitors’ half. Whether this was due to Stonnington trying to defend their lead or through Knox moving up a gear can be debated. It was probably due to a bit of each.

Stonnington took the lead with their first attack in the 7th minute. O’Brien and Masemo did well down the right flank but the latter’s cross was cut out by Nick Veljovic. However, his first touch was too heavy and Meijas nipped in to slide the ball into the far corner with Jorgensen wrong footed.

Brzostek made a fine save in the 17th minute to parry a fierce shot from Peter Veljovic. The rebound fell to the same player but he blasted it wide.

Hingert was proving too tricky for Stonnington down the right wing and three players were booked in the first half alone for bringing him down with late tackles.

The first controversial incident came on the half hour mark. Jorgensen saved from Alevropoulos and as his backward motion took him dangerously close to the goal line, he threw the ball back into play with Stonnington appealing for a goal.

At the other end, Suat created a couple of chances but Knox’s failure to finish was again evident as was their tendency to give the ball away when in attacking positions.

Just as half-time loomed, Knox won a free kick on the right. Edgar headed the ball home from close range, but Knox’s celebrations were cut short when it was ruled out for offside, with the player himself claiming to have run from two metres on side to meet the ball.

Brzostek continued in fine form in the Stonnington goal in the second half as he made a number of fine saves, in particular a brilliant one hander to palm a Nick Veljovic shot over the bar.

With time beginning to run out, the equaliser came. Edgar’s shot brought another full length save from the keeper, but Suat pounced on the rebound to drive the ball home.

Having defended for so long, Stonnington now found it difficult to break the Knox pressure, although Nash did go close with a looping header. 

With five minutes to go, Knox conjured up the winner. Saunders made a great run across the face of the goal to meet Nick Veljovic’s corner with a brilliant near post header that gave the keeper no chance.

The win took Knox to fifth place, but still five points behind the league leader, Diamond Valley. They travel to Chelsea next week.

Knox City: M. Jorgensen, M. Coates (Dos Santos -73rd), A. Edgar, D. Perazic, J. Hingert, N. Giannopoulos A. Saunders, N. Veljovic, K. Suat (D. Veljovic – 90th), L. Grubic P. Veljovic (H. Swami – 59th). Sub not used –K. McEvoy.

Stonnington City: K. Brzostek, J. D’Arcy, A. Varvaras, M. Lorenzo, G. Pavouris (M. Sioulas – 46th), A. Jackson, N. Alevropoulos, J. Menalaou (M. Eleftheriadis – 46th), M. Masemo (D. Nash – 70th), S. O’Brien, O. Mejias. Subs not used – S. Voursoukis, B. Petkovic.