Super League Round 3 Review
They sit just ahead of Mount Druitt, who beat Fraser Park 2-0, and St George and Sydney Uni, who drew 2-2. On Sunday, Spirit FC and Rockdale grabbed their first wins of the season, downing Liverpool 3-1 and Granville 2-0 respectively.
Rams tame Tigers
The Macarthur Rams announced themselves in emphatic style with a 4-1 home win over the Northern Tigers at Lynwood Park on Saturday night. In just their second Super League victory against the Tigers in nine meetings, the Rams showed poise and power to beat a persistent Northern outfit and consolidate top spot on points ladder.
Macarthur started the game briskly, taking a 1-0 lead behind a 24th-minute Josh Ford goal, and extending it to 2-0 when Goran Ljuboja tapped in a short freekick on the hour mark. Trailing by two goals, the visitors pressed forward and were rewarded for their efforts when Thomas Spencer scored from a corner kick inside the final half-hour.
A massive effort from the Rams keeper shortly afterwards, to keep out a sharp shot on goal, maintained the home side?s lead, and the ensuing break saw some nifty and accurate movement from Macarthur lead to a blistering Chris Gomez volley into the back of the net to push the Rams advantage to 3-1 10 minutes from the end. New Zealander Cole Peverly finished off the Tigers with a neat chip over their keeper inside the final five minutes to round off the scoring at 4-1.
Macarthur mastermind Paul Carter said he was ?happy? with his side?s start to the season ? 11 goals in three games, including two wins, to claim an early pole position ? but there was a hint of contentment in his voice. ?It?s a good start to the season, and the result was against a good side. The Tigers pushed up and put us under a lot of pressure at times? they are a well run side and didn?t ever stop trying to come at us,? he said. ?It?s still early in the season, but I?m happy with how we have started.?
?I think we have a good side, I just have to make sure they keep their consistency. We?ll see from round eight how good we might be. The good thing is that our four goals [last night] came from a defender, two midfielders and a forward, so we have potential scorers around the park. They [the goals] have also come from open play, and that?s also pleasing.?
Tigers coach Jason Eager dipped his hat to the Macarthur effort, but always knew the game would be part of a learning curve for his young side. ?Macarthur deserved to win, there?s no doubt about that, they played very well and their last two goals were quality. [But] We had five boys around the 20 years and under mark starting last night; they will improve, it will just take a little bit of time. We?ve got another tough one against Parramatta next week, and we?ll look forward to that.?
Macarthur Rams 4 (Josh Ford 16m Goran Ljuboja 58m Chris Gomez 81m Cole Peverly 85m) Northern Tigers 1 (Thomas Spencer 73m)
Eagles soar over Lightning
PCYC Parramatta Eagles continued their steady start to the 2009 Super League season with a gritty 2-0 away win over Central Coast Lightning at Pluim Park on Saturday night. Both teams took their time to work out a way to goal, and it looked like the hour-long 0-0 stalemate might have been broken when Lightning players appealed unsuccessfully for a penalty (push in the back), only to see the Eagles score from a corner kick, through Mathew Clowes, at the other end of the park shortly afterwards.
As Central Coast threw players forward in search of an equaliser, Parramatta?s Foti Hatzivalsamis scored a second goal, also from a corner, to seal a 2-0 win. ??It was a good win away from home, and has kept form going,? Eagles coach Jason Falzon said. ?We had to be patient? and it took us a long time to break them down, but when we started to play the way we wanted to, that?s when the goals came.?
?[Regarding the solid start to the year] We?ve always tried to build consistency. There?s a lot of new faces in the team and we?ve done well to get some continuity in our play so early on in the year. We have also scored five goals with five different goalscorers, and that?s good.?
Lightning coach Peter Preston realised the Eagles would be tough to beat, but thought his team should have been awarded a penalty on the hour-mark, when the score was deadlocked at 0-0. ?I thought it was a push in the back, and a lot of people I talked to thought the same. Unfortunately, it also happened just before they scored,? he said. ?But [overall] the game was excellent. Both teams played well.?
?They scored off two corners, which was a bit disappointing, but we also played some good football. I?m proud of the boys; they worked hard and showed last night that if we play with that sort of intensity and quality, we?ll win more games than we lose this year. We just have to do that well against every team and not just the stronger teams; that?s our challenge.?
Central Coast Lightning 0 PCYC Parramatta Eagles 2 (Mathew Clowes 61m Foti Hatzivalsamis 81m)
Saints, Uni stalemate
Nothing separated St George Saints from Sydney University in a 2-2 draw at Hensley Athletics Field on Saturday night. The visitors got off to a blistering start when Saints magician Juan Carlos Chavez bobbed up in the sixth minute to score his sixth goal of the season, but that paled in comparison to a 30m Reuben Lagos blast past Rams keeper James Lowery that lifted St George to 2-0 just 15 minutes later.
But the young Saints took their foot off the pedal and allowed Uni to grab a goal on the half-hour mark when Christian Soares converted a cross into the box. As the ?Students? ascended in the second half, the St George defence cracked a second time and Aman Hadid delighted home fans with a 65th-minute equaliser. Two late saves from Saints keeper Steve Tolios kept the score level at full-time, 2-2.
Saints coach Nikola Orlic thought his side could have done better, and will learn from the experience. ?I thought we were outplayed in the middle of the park; it?s a disappointing result,? he said. ?The second goal [from Reuben Lagos] was a cracker, but then we laid off the ball a little bit too much after that, and that shows a little bit of inexperience from the players. [In the second half] they got on top of us and we gave away possession too easily. We needed to put our foot down and just lost a bit of intensity. But we?re a young side and we?ll learn from that.?
Uni mentor John Caruana was equally as disappointed. ?It was definitely the hardest game we?ve played so far. They came out firing faster than us, but I thought we played quite well,? he said. ?We had five good chances, and definitely had enough chances to win the game? I?m happy with the result.?
Sydney University 2 (Christian Soares 30m Aman Hadid 65m) St George FC 2 (Juan Carlos Chavez 6m Rueben Lagos 22m)
Rangers clean up Fraser Park
A new coach hasn?t stopped Fraser Park FC?s losing start to the season but they did show signs of great improvement in a 2-4 loss to Mount Druitt Town Rangers at Popondetta Park on Saturday night. New signing Ramsin Shamon drew encouragement from a team that has now conceded 11 goals in three matches. The visitors certainly started the game stronger and could have had more to show than an early 2-0 lead. Fraser Park would have also been disappointed to concede a goal late in the half that allowed Mount Druitt to recompose themselves at halftime just one goal down.
Sure enough, the Rangers came out firing in the second term and had Fraser Park on the ropes, further goals to Michael Haberman, Troy Eedy (his second for the game) and Caetano Lima sending the home fans into raptures as Mount Druitt chalked up win number two to start the year.
Shamon, who coached West Sydney Berries in Premier League last year, said he?d seen enough to know that Fraser Park would lift themselves out of the doldrums. ?I?m sure things will work out of us, it?s all positive,? he said. ?We dominated the first half and should have been up by five or six goals. We?re pretty disappointed we didn?t get anything from the game; 4-2 is not a true reflection of the whole game as it really was a game of halves.?
?Fitness did come into it in the second half. We have a lot of players injured and suspended and basically played with our first-11 for 85 minutes of the game. The boys did their best, and we could see the results of a lot of work that has been put into the first few training sessions together. It?s really early days, but there are a lot of positives.?
Mount Druitt Town Rangers 4 (Troy Eedy 41/69m Michael Haberman 51m Caetano Lima 82m) Fraser Park FC 2 (D Andrade 29m L Cusack 36m)
Rockdale beat Granville
Sleeping giants Rockdale City Suns awoke with a vengeance against Granville Rage at the Ilinden Sports Centre on Sunday afternoon, scoring on the half-hour and hour-mark to win 2-0. The two-goal victory was Rockdale?s second Super League win over Granville in three years and went a long way to wiping away the memory of last year?s elimination final loss to the Rage.
Suns coach Mile Todorovski was delighted with the way his side went about collecting the three points. ?It was a very hard game; fortunately for us we dominated all game and score the two goals. It?s good to score more than one goal, but maybe we should have got another three, four, easily. Today we play much better than just two goals, so I expect even better next time. Granville is a good, solid team, but my players were more hungry to win the game.?
Tigers counterpart, Hugh McCrory agreed. ?We were very ordinary. They [Rockdale] beat us 2-0, but it could have been three or four more,? he said. ?My guys didn?t turn up to play. To be honest, I only had three players play well out there [Jason Holmes, Daniel Carrozza and Park], the rest were non-existent. The guys realise it was a poor performance. We can turn it around for next week.?
Rockdale City Suns 2 (Roberto Di Meglio 35m Goce Trposki 60m) Granville Rage 0
Spirit crush Liverpool
GHFA Spirit FC picked up its first Super League victory with a classy come-from-behind 3-1 win over trophy holders FC Bossy Liverpool at Christie Park on Sunday afternoon. After two home draws, the pressure was on Spirit to come up with all three points, but they were on the back-foot when Bossy scored the opener just after halftime through Alvaro Malmierca. But a late surge from the home side saw them score three times in the final quarter-hour to collect a memorable win.
Spirit coach Jason Van Blerk was ecstatic to break his Super League duck. ?We had a lot of chances and couldn?t put the ball in the back of net until the final half-hour,? he said. ?I think it?s a step in the right direction. The boys played quite well and knew they had it in them to score the goals. All credit to us; we took the game to them and kept going forward.?
Bossy coach Saso Boskovski believed fortune, most of it against Liverpool, played a part in his side?s loss. ?Today we were a bit unlucky. We start losing the concentration in the last 20 minutes. One of the players commit the penalty, and then scored an own goal from a corner kick five minutes later. I am a bit unhappy with the boys because they played good football. We did a lot of things right, but these things happen. We will start to win the games if we keep improving like this.?
Spirit FC 3 (T Simpson 77m D Cunningham 84m Own goal 86m) FC Bossy Liverpool 1 (Alvaro Malmierca 55m)
Round three results
Central Coast Lightning 0 PCYC Parramatta Eagles 2 (Mathew Clowes 61m Foti Hatzivalsamis 81m)
Macarthur Rams 4 (Josh Ford 16m Goran Ljuboja 58m Chris Gomez 81m Cole Peverly 85m) Northern Tigers 1 (Thomas Spencer 73m)
Mount Druitt Town Rangers 4 (Troy Eedy 41/69m Michael Haberman 51m Chris Lima 82m) Fraser Park FC 2 (D Andrade 29m L Cusack 36m)
Sydney University 2 (Christian Soares 30m Aman Hadid 65m) St George FC 2 (Juan Carlos Chavez 6m Rueben Lagos 22m)
Rockdale City Suns 2 (Roberto Di Meglio 35m Goce Trposki 60m) Granville Rage 0
Spirit FC 3 (T Simpson 77m D Cunningham 84m Own goal 86m) FC Bossy Liverpool 1 (Alvaro Malmierca 55m)
Grade 20 results
Central Coast Lightning 0 PCYC Parramatta Eagles 0
Macarthur Rams 0 Northern Tigers 3
Mount Druitt Town Rangers 2 Fraser Park FC 2
Sydney University 1 St George FC 1
Rockdale City Suns 7 Granville Rage 1
Spirit FC 1 FC Bossy Liverpool 0
This week?s games
There?s some interesting match-ups in round four of the 2009 NSW Super League with Spirit FC at Fraser Park, Macarthur hosting Uni, Central Coast welcoming Granville and St George playing at Mount Druitt, all on Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon, Northern Tigers tackle Parramatta at Mills Park, while defending champs Bossy Liverpool take on their old coach Mile Todorosvki when Rockdale visits Ernie Smith Reserve.
-By Daniel De Nardi
