Blacktown City defeat old nemisis for first win of the season
The first chance of the evening fell to Aman Hadid, who had been played in to a great shooting position by Peter Peralta, but the Bankstown attacker did not take full advantage and instead the ball broke to Adam Jenner on Blacktown?s right. Jenner attacked down the flank and cut the ball back to the far post where Travis Major had time to adjust and shoot, only to be denied by an outstanding save by Zlatko Joseski.
1? minute later Mitchell Long was denied by the post when he fired goalwards and beat Joseski, only for it to cannon off the near post and Long?s team mates could not pounce on the rebound.
Major was denied again 60?? seconds later, this time by the Bankstown defence.
In the 18? minute Shannon Burgin and Steven Bozinovski linked well but the move came to nothing, as did the move down the other end when Kain Rastall and Luke Roodenberg almost combined only for a defender to get to the through ball before Roodenberg.
In the 22? minute Roodenberg and Major combined to set up another attack, but again the likes of David Gardiner and Steve Krsteski combined to deny Blacktown a goal scoring situation.
The Blacktown City defence then played the ball back to Hadid in error and though he was on a tight angle, the striker was still able to garner a shot out of the situation, although it went over the crossbar.
Moments later and Rastall and Milorad Simonovic played a great one-two that saw Rastall hit the penalty-area with speed but the defence forced him off the ball and Rastall went down in the area, although, to his credit, he did not attempt to claim a penalty.
The resulting ball went down the other end and Hadid was played between the Blacktown City defence and this time, with a better angle to work with, he fired the ball home for the opening goal.
In response Mitchell Duke made a great run down the left and he linked with Mitchell Long, though the latter was unable to get the ball across the face of goal.
On the half hour Frederick Graham, a great performer in his role as lone striker, made a good run and played the ball to Omar Saadi on the right but Saadi?s ball to the far post was just too long for Shannon Burgin to run it down.
Jenner then for Blacktown City made a run down the left that looked over when Shannon Burgin put in a slide tackle. However, the ball slipped back into the path of Jenner and he continued to the by-line. His cross then missed everyone in the goal mouth and landed at the far side at the feet of Travis Major who this time made the most of the opportunity and scored the equaliser.
Simonovic then played a great ball to Jenner on the right and he flew down the flank. This time, though, his cross missed everyone and the trouble was over for Bankstown.
In the 37? minute, a free-kick from Haman came off the wall back to his feet and he lobbed the ball back into the goal mouth to an unmarked Burgin who tried to back head the ball goalwards, but Bradasevic was good enough to get down low and deny the home side.
In the 41? minute, Joseski?s reflexes were tested once more when Major broke on the right and cut in to go one-on-one with Joseski but the Bankstown goalkeeper parried Major?s shot. The ball then landed at the feet of Roodenberg and he fired the ball goalwards only for Joseski to pull off another magnificent save.
In the closing stages of the half, when all seemed lost for the half, Major made a good run down the right and this time successfully beats Joseski with a chip only for Gardiner to hook the ball off the line. However, the danger was not over as the ball fell to Long and, despite Gardiner trying to repeat his marvellous save off the line, the ball was put into the back of the net by Long, giving Blacktown a half -time lead.
The second-half started with more end to end football but there were no shots on target for the opening 5? minutes. In fact the first shot on target was a successful one. Long was fouled on the left edge of the area by Krsteski and Travis Major stood over the free-kick. He fired the ball along the ground and despite many of the players having a go at the ball none could touch it and the ball went straight into the back of the net to give Blacktown a two goal lead.
In the 54? minute there were claims of handball as Graham brought the ball down in the Bankstown attacking area only to lose out to Matt Lewis, who had his arms around him and some of the home crowd demanded a penalty be given as they felt Lewis?s hands had touched the ball, although none of the players on the park made much of the issue.
Just before the hour Graham fired from distance a shot that beat the Blacktown custodian but went wide of the post. Then in the 64? minute Steve Liavas played Graham down the left. Graham cut the ball back to an unmarked Daniel Slaveski but he saw his shot go well over the crossbar.
On 67? minutes, Mitchell Duke and Long combined with a one-two and then Duke crossed it to Major, who flew at the far post but so did his marker and the cross was cleared.
2? minutes later, Aman Hadid exemplified the quality play on display when he made a great run down the right, showing great skill on the ball, and won a throw-in despite not having much assistance from his teammates. The ball came away to substitute Chris Petrovski 40-metres from the target and Petrovski put the ball back into the mix. The ball seemed to go away from danger, though incredibly, the ball dipped suddenly and bounced off the crossbar, just inches from being a most amazing goal.
In the 73? minute Shannon Burgin fired a free-kick just over the crossbar before Luke Roodenberg saw the ball he back-heeled towards goal cleared off the line before the follow up shot was also saved.
12? minutes from the end, Burgin saw his claims of a hand ball by Adam Jenner dismissed by referee Adam Weir before Hadid stole the ball off the Blacktown City defence and fired a great shot across the face of goal.
In the last play of the match, Rastall played the ball to the opposite flank for substitute Ray Miller to move the ball quickly into the middle of the park where it was laid back to Simonovic who just over the crossbar.
In the end it was a match of great attacking moves and one that Blacktown City got the better of, as Bankstown coach Blagoja Kuleski reflected upon after the match:
?I expected Blacktown City to be better than their table position showed and they showed this tonight.
?The first-half saw some special football from Blacktown and we slowed them in the second-half after changing a few things. We can learn a lot from this game tonight, we need to find the holes and do more work and fix them.
?We are a new team, there are a lot of new things around the club at the moment and we are still all learning. Our pitch is one of the finest surfaces in the league but at the moment its width is something our players are getting used to.?
Blacktown City coach Mark Crittenden was clearly relieved to have got a win at Jensen Park.
?We have not been far away but have been unable to find the target this season. In the early stages of the match tonight I thought it was going to go that way again but the goals came eventually.
?It has not been an easy start but the boys have trained hard and stayed upbeat. We played some really nice football tonight, especially in the first-half.
?We are happier tonight because we were more penetrative in front of goal but it does not get any easier for us as we face off against Sydney United next week.?
Grade-20 final score – Bankstown City 0 Blacktown City 6.
Match Stats
Bankstown City 1 (Hadid 24?)
Blacktown City FC 3 (Major 31? 52? Long 45?)
Saturday 23rd April, 2011
Jensen Park, Sefton
Referee: Adam Weir
Assistant Referees: Lance Greenshields and Thomas Lee
Fourth Official: Brendan Johansen
Crowd: 300
Bankstown City: 1.Zlatko Joseski; 2.Omar Saadi (3.Chris Petrovski 46?), 5.David Gardiner, 7.Stefanos Liavas, 8.Peter Peralta (4.Blaz Dejanovic 56?), 9.Shannon Burgin, 15.Steven Bozinovski, 19.Steve Krsteski, 20.Frederick Graham (11.Danny Wilson 89?), 6Daniel Slaveski, 30.Aman Hadid
Substitutes Not Used: 25.Daniel Zeleny, Anthony Anic
Yellow Cards: Burgin 89?
Red Cards: Nil
Blacktown City FC: 40.David Bradasevic; 4.Travis Major (15.Ray Miller 72?), 5.Pat Gatt, 7.Luke Roodenberg, 9.Kain Rastall, 10.Mitchell Long, 11.Milorad Simonovic, 13.Matt Lewis, 3.Mitchell Duke (14.Michael Brown 81?), 17.Adam Jenner, 19.Zac Cairncross
Substitutes Not Used: 1.Simon Jaeger, 22.Luka Dukic
Yellow Cards: Mitchell Duke 46?
Red Cards: Nil
Player Ratings:
3 – Travis Major (BCFC)
2 – Adam Jenner (BCFC)
1 – Zlatko Joseski (BC)
-By Stuart Jones
