Spoils shared between Blacktown and Marconi
With both sides enjoying a week off due to washed out games last weekend, both looked to get back into things quickly.
Keith Shevlin opened the scoring for the Stallions in the 20? minute before Milorad Simonovic struck back.
After scoring seven goals in their last home game, Blacktown City started the match on the front foot. In the 1? minute of play, Ray Miller found Mitchell Duke on the left who cut the ball to his right foot before shooting on goal which was easily saved by James Chronopoulos.
In the 3? minute Marconi played the ball into the Blacktown City penalty-area with the visitors having a claim for a penalty turned down after what seemed to be a hand ball by Zac Cairncross.
Marconi kept the pressure on Blacktown with Keith Shevlin hitting the post from a header a minute later.
Both sides? high energy levels showed with Blacktown pressuring the Marconi defence in the 9? minute, leading to Duke seeing his shot go wide of the mark.
On 19? minutes Mitchell Long played a ball back to Travis Major who tapped the ball to his right before forcing a save from Chronopoulos.
A minute later, Blacktown City caught the Marconi defence napping as Miller played a through ball down the left to Matt Lewis. Unfortunately for the former Central Coast Mariners player, Chronopoulos came out well to thwart the chance.
The missed chance proved costly for Blacktown as Marconi took the lead from the next play. Chronopoulos got the ball to Nahuel Arrarte before the latter hit the ball like a bullet from 30-yards out. What should have been a simple save for Symon Jaegar turned out to be the opening goal, as the ball went through his fingers before hitting the post and rolling back to Keith Shevlin for the easiest of tap-ins.
Blacktown was not going to die wondering and in the 34? minute pegged a goal back. After a spell of possession in front of the Stallions goal, Mitch Long played a lovely through ball between Brenton Rhodes and Andrew Mailer and found Milorad Simonovic who calmly curled the ball around Chronopoulos to make it 1-1.
With 3? minutes till the break, Blacktown almost took the lead as Luke Roodenburg saw his flick header go wide of the post leaving the scores level going into the break.
Marconi came out of the half-time break hungry to regain the lead and almost had it within 1? minute. Matthew Gordon won the ball in the middle of the park before feeding Nathan Jagelman who beat the offside trap. Luckily for Blacktown, Zac Cairncross got back to pressure the striker who softly shot to the arms of Jaegar.
The game turned into an arm wrestle midway through the half with both sides fighting to break the deadlock.
Marconi however started to dominate possession and in the 60? minute Jaegar fumbled a corner before regathering.
4? minutes later, Jagelman was again put through on goal, this time by Nahuel Arrarte, only for the ball to bob up with Jagelman again scuffing his shot.
The home side slowly came back into the game and on 69? minutes a great one-two between Travis Major and Long ended with the latter striking the ball across the face of goal, missing the oncoming Roodenburg.
In the 73? minute Matt Lewis caused the Marconi defence trouble as his cross from the left saw Chronopoulos trekking back to just touch the ball out for a corner.
A minute later Simonovic looked to double his tally as he struck the ball from 25-yards out, forcing Chronopoulos into another great save to keep his side in the game.
Both sides turned to their bench in the latter stages of the match with former A-League player Sean Rooney coming on for Blacktown to join Roodenburg in the forward line.
The plan almost worked on 86? minutes as a great cross by Major saw Rooney dive goal bound to just miss the ball.
Blacktown fought hard to find a winner with 4? minutes of injury time remaining but could not find the breakthrough as both sides were left to share the spoils.
Following the match Blacktown City FC coach Mark Crittenden said the draw was a fair result:
?I?m disappointed because I thought three points would have had us in good stead going into the finals,?? he said.
?But I thought there was good energy from both sides and they both competed.
?We?re happy where we are sitting in the five and only a couple of points out of the top two.
?I think we played good football and we just need a bit of work in front of goal as we have all season.??
In the visitors shed Marconi coach Luke Casserly said his side should have taken the three points:
?A point doesn?t really do us too much good to be honest but we?ll stick in there and keep battling away,?? Casserly said.
?I sort of felt like we had some decent chances, we had a good shout for a hand ball and hit the post early on.
?We rode our luck a little bit as well with Jimmy (Chronopoulos) making some crucial saves and keeping us in the game.??
In the Grade-20 fixture, Blacktown City FC scored a late goal to record a 2-1 victory over Marconi Stallions.
Match Stats
Blacktown City FC 1 (Milorad Simonovic 34?)
Marconi Stallions 1 (Keith Shevlin 20?)
Sunday July 31st, 2011
Lily Holmes Stadium, Seven Hills
Blacktown City FC: 1.Symon Jaegar; 3.Mitchell Duke (12.Sean Rooney 77?), 4.Travis Major, 5.Patrick Gatt, 7.Luke Roodenburg (17.Adam Jenner 93?), 8.Matt Brenman, 10.Mitch Long (16.Luke Austin 88?), 11.Milorad Simonovic, 13.Matt Lewis, 15.Ray Miller, 19.Zac Cairncross
Substitutions Not Used: 40. David Bradasevic
Yellow Cards: Cairncross 58?
Red Cards: Nil
Marconi Stallions: 22.James Chronopoulos; 2.Andrew Mailer, 4.Umut Tokdogan, 6.Brenton Rhodes, 9.Keith Shevlin, 11.Matthew Gordon, 18.Nathan Jagelman, 20.Giosue Sama (17.Mitchell Mallia, 76?), 23.Christopher Nunes (32.Trent Barton 84?), 24.Daniel Petkovski, 26.Nahuel Arrarte
Substitutions Not Used: 3.Ali Haydar, 14.Graziano Trimboli, 21.Nikodin Matic
Yellow Cards: Shevlin 63?, Long 67?, Gordon 76?
Red Cards: Nil
-By Chris Georges
