Sharks bitten as Eagles soar at Seymour Shaw
A somewhat topsy-turvy opening 15? minutes didn?t create too many openings with the best coming in the 10? minute when Brad Boardman robbed the ball from a dawdling defender and laid it off to Neil Jablonski who in turn played Michael Katz through on the right.
His cross for Chris Price at the back stick was inch-perfect, though the latter was unable to gain enough purchase with his header, leading to a comfortable save for the Bonnyrigg custodian Ali Akbal.
Eight minutes later and the Sharks had efforts from both Panny Nikas and Boardman cleared off the line seconds before Nikas found himself in the book for dissent as cracks began appearing in the Bonnyrigg defence.
The visitors though held out grimly at times and repulsed the advances of the home side and looked to string together attacks on the break, a plan that worked well for the Sharks last campaign with Brown at the helm and they eventually took the lead against the run of play on 22? minutes when Milorad Simonovic picked up a loose ball 30-yards from goal and ran at the defence before unleashing a powerful right foot shot into Nathan Denham?s right-hand corner to give the White Eagles a 1-0 lead.
Price was denied the equaliser in the 35? minute when his point-blank shot was parried upwards by Akbal which, fortunately for the visiting team, dropped straight back into his arms for a sensational reaction save though it was levelled up when Panny Nikas latched on to a Boardman cross and fired home with 5? minutes of the half remaining.
The second period started with Nathan Rivera replacing David Petrovic for the visitors and the Sharks attacking from the whistle in what seemed an unstoppable wave of offence that Bonnyrigg managed to stifle with a mixture of courage and ?moving up? to catch the home team offside.
Nathan Ralph was the recipient of a Boardman/Bakis move but his shot cannoned off the rump of Daniel Willoughby.
The Sharks though were not to be denied 30?? seconds later when Michael Katz was sent sprinting away down the right to cross for Boardman who made no mistake in smashing home the ball to give the Sharks the lead for the first time on the evening.
In the very next minute Denham had to save sharply down to his left after a long-range shot from Ilkay Gurbuz had the home custodian at full stretch, which proved his last action of the match as Fredrick Graham replaced him for Bonnyrigg.
The White Eagles had no choice but to push forward, leaving bigger gaps at the back, and the Sharks should have exploited this though the visitors endeavour paid off when Almir Dizdaric netted with a cross shot that left Denham no chance and the match was squared up once again.
The Sharks did regain the lead in controversial circumstances, the visitors claiming the ball had gone out for a goal-kick prior to the goalmouth scramble which finally ended with Chris Price poking the ball home after 74? minutes, quickly followed by Anthony Faria being replaced by Domenic Cutri for Bonnyrigg.
Dizdaric had the chance to level again with a diving header for the White Eagles but it went narrowly wide.
With barely 10? minutes of the match remaining the White Eagles had no option but to go all out attack in search of the elusive equaliser, however Paul Cotte didn?t help the cause when kicking out at Matt Villazon, superbly spotted by the linesman, and receiving a straight red card. As a free-kick had already been given to the White Eagles they still had an opportunity. From the set-piece the ball was laid back to Simonovic and yet another thunderous shot found its way through the crowded box and into the net to bring the match back again to parity at 3-all.
Substitute Fredrick Graham received a caution for a niggling tackle and Bakis took the free-kick, which was in-direct, but the linesman spotted an offside and therefore disallowed the goal deep into stoppage time.
Another twist came when Graham had a stupendous effort fully 35-yards that beat Denham in the Sharks goal, crashed off the crossbar, onto the back of the goalkeeper, and across the line to give Bonnyrigg a 4-3 win with the last kick of the game.
A jubilant, if somewhat relieved, Bonnyrigg coach Brian Brown said afterwards:
?I was very pleased with the way the guys stuck at it tonight and never gave up as this is something I have been trying to drill into them over the last few weeks.
?The boys believed in themselves and our target has been to try and move up one spot on the ladder each week but with Blacktown drawing tonight we remain one point behind them I believe but we are heading in the right direction.
?From where we were three weeks ago when I came to the club and where we are at now is nothing short of fantastic but in time honoured fashion we will just take each game at a time and see where we are at the business end of the season.?
Robbie Stanton was obviously most unpleased with the result in Sharks camp when stating:
?I?m extremely disappointed with the way we let them back into the game when we should have closed it down:
?We over elaborated at times when a simple long clearance was the order of the day but Bonnyrigg were very strong tonight and just kept coming at us.
?I think we all realise we let three points slip tonight when we had them in the bag and not just the once either and all because we overdid it when the simple things should have happened.?
In the earlier game the Sutherland Sharks went down to a solitary goal to the visitors.
Match Stats
Sutherland Sharks 3 (Panny Nikas 40;, Brad Boardman 57?, Chris Price 74?)
Bonnyrigg White Eagles 4 (Milorad Simonovic 22?, 88?, Almir Dizdaric 65?, Fredrick Graham 94?)
Saturday, 2nd May, 2009
Seymour Shaw Park, Miranda
Referee: Kurt Ams
Assistant Referees: Gareth Askham and Lance Greenshield
Fourth Official: Michael Seaborn
Crowd: 1,004
Sutherland Sharks: 1.Nathan Denham; 2.George Souris, 3.Srecko Mitrovic (19.Matthew Villazon 83?), 4.Michael Robinson, 6.Chris Price, 7.Jimmy Bakis, 8.Nathan Ralph, 9.Brad Boardman (10.Matt Hall 73?), 12.Neil Jablonski, 15.Michael Katz, 23.Panni Nikas
Substitutes Not Used: 17.Jordan Nickolovski, 18.Kyle Stuart, 21.Arron Tayebe
Yellow Cards: Panny Nikas 19?, Jim Bakis 84?, Matt Hall 89?
Red Cards: Nil
Bonnyrigg White Eagles: 23.Ali Akbal; 20 Milan Zoric, 2.Paul Cotte, 4.David Petrovic, (13.Nathan Rivera 46?), 5.Mark D?Alessandro, 6.Ilkay Gurbuz (10.Fredrick Graham 62?), 7.Nikola Zonjic, 8.Daniel Willoughby, 17.Milorad Simonovic, 11.Almir Dizdaric, 19.Anthony Faria, (14.Domenic Cutri 74?)
Substitutes Not Used: 1.Nenad Vekic, 9.Eric Nyamekye
Yellow Cards: David Petrovic 29?, Ali Akbal 89?, Fredrick Graham 90?+2?
Red Cards: Paul Cotte 87?
Player Ratings:
3 ? Milorad Simonovic (BWE)
2 ? Chris Price (SS)
1 ? Neil Jablonski (SS)
-By Micky Brock
