Sydney Olympic out-run brave Blacktown

The Easter break did Ken Schembri?s men the world of good with the diabolical effort dished up against A.P.I.A.-Leichhardt a fortnight ago a distant memory, but it still wasn?t enough to snare the much needed three-points.
The home side came out and matched their more illustrious opponents from the outset with Belmore favourite Shannon Cole well contained on the left flank early on.
Cole had the 2000 strong crowd biting their fingernails on the half hour mark when he lined up a free kick from 18 yards after he was fouled by Matt Pressello.
The dead ball specialist fired his shot towards the near post with conviction only to see it flash inches wide.
The Sydney FC target then tested Ivan Necevski a minute later with an audacious strike from 40 yards, which dipped wickedly, with Necevski carefully parrying the shot away for a corner.
Whatever Milan Blagojevic said to his players in the sheds at the break had the desired effect, with Olympic a completely different side in the second-half.
James Kovas drew first blood on 61? minutes following a brilliant run to the byline from Emmanuel Zunino.
The lanky South American beat two defenders before laying the ball in front of the advancing Kovas who rifled home giving Necevski no chance.
Olympic then put the game to bed eight minutes later after a team goal that was worth the admission price alone.
Roger Galayini, a former crowd favourite at Seven Hills, released man of the match Milorad Simonovic who in-turn played in Cole.
Cole evaded his marker and had time to measure his cross before picking out Anthony Hartshorn who beat Necevski with a clinical near post header.
Blagojevic was relieved to have taken the three points but freely admitted it wasn?t a polished performance from his men:
?We knew Blacktown City would come out and ask us a few questions and what we dished up in the first-half wasn?t good enough,? he said.
?You have to put things in perspective though, we didn?t have our preferred two strikers playing in Paul Wither and Matthew Mayora, so it?s not a bad result.
?Any team that Ken coaches is going to come at you and I thought they were very good early on.
?The boys seemed a bit rattled so I stressed to them to be patient.
?I felt Milorad Simonovic was enormous for us in the middle, and Michael Cindric was also very good.
?They didn?t have any clear-cut chances but what did concern me was how we switched off with ten minutes to go.
?These grinding type games test the character of the squad and I am sure the boys will take a fair bit away from the match.?
Ken Schembri was encouraged by the performance from his charges feeling it was their best hit out of the season:
?Even though we didn?t come away with anything I saw a lot to like about the way we played,? he said.
?I keep saying we aren?t going that badly, and even though we have one point from five games I am not that concerned.
?The difference was Olympic called on their experience and for twenty minutes played us off the park and in that time scored their two goals.
?We lost Brendan Maroney with an injury after ten minutes and squandered a series of half-chances.
?Once you go a few games without scoring the confidence drops and if we can find that composure in front of goal and jag a few results, we will improve.
?Based on our effort tonight we have the talent we just need the bounce of the ball to go our way.?
Match Stats
Sydney Olympic 2 (James Kovas 61? Anthony Hartshorn 69?)
Blacktown City Demons 0
Venue: Gabbie Stadium
Referee: James Lewis
Assistant Referees: David Goldsmith, David Christie
Crowd: 2109
Sydney Olympic: 1.Michael HERBERT, 16.Nathan SHERLOCK, 4.Mirko JURILJ, 5.Michael CINDRIC, 3.Emmanuel ZUNINO, 22.Peter ZORBAS (Chris TRIANTIS 74?), 7.Milorad SIMONOVIC, 6.Roger GALAYINI (Iain RAMSEY 83?), 14.Shannon COLE, 9.Anthony HARTSHORN, 12.James KOVAS (Anthony DOUMANIS 85?)
Blacktown City Demons: 1.Ivan NECEVSKI, 2.Matt PRESSELLO, 3.Paul KARBON, 4.Daniel WILKINSON, 5.Ryan WALSH, 6.Ken CHUN (Ben ELLIS 77?), 9.Bruno SALAS, 10.Leo CARLE (Chris BEDZO 66?), 12.Brendan MARONEY (Brian VANEGA 11?), 16.Adam BIDDLE, 25.Jordan SIMPSON
Yellow Cards: None
Red Cards: None

Player Ratings:
3- Milorad Simonovic (SO)
2- Michael Cindric ( SO)
1- Nathan Sherlock (SO)
-By Andrew Hurrell