Wolves head their way to victory over Sydney Olympic
In a game dominated by Sydney Olympic, two headed goals by Mark Picciolini and Sasho Petrovski gave the Wolves the three points.
Sydney Olympic were forced into two changes to their starting line-up with Troy Danaskos and Will Angel replacing suspended duo Emmanuel Giannaros and David Gullo.
The Wolves showed their intentions in the 1? minute of play when Cameron Littler?s early shot went just over the top left corner.
On 8? minutes Littler was at it again, taking the ball inwards from the right before unleashing a curling shot with Sydney Olympic goalkeeper Paul Henderson forced into a save.
4? minutes later, it was visiting goalkeeper Daniel Collison being forced into a save. A pin-point corner by Phil Makrys let Marton Vass send a powerful header goalwards only for Collison to expertly get his hands to it.
South Coast continued pressing Olympic and took the lead in the 16? minute. Chris Nathaniel got the ball wide on the left for the Wolves before crossing early to find an unmarked Mark Picciolini who headed the ball into the net for the 1-0 lead.
The goal seemed to spur Sydney Olympic on and 2? minutes later Chris Triantis? free-kick beat the goalkeeper but was saved on the line by former Sydney FC defender Jacob TImpano.
The home fans didn?t have to wait long for their team to get on the scoreboard. In the 20? minute, a great through ball by Makrys found Triantis free on the right. The latter forced the goalkeeper off his line before calmly squaring the ball to a free Matthew Mayora who tapped the ball into an open net, bringing the scores back to level.
Sydney Olympic started to control the game and in the 30? minute good work by Chris Triantis again saw him feed Troy Danaskos whose first time shot hit the side netting.
The Wolves were forced to sit in their own half for the remainder of the opening period with Triantis and Danaskos causing trouble out wide.
However, against the run of play, South Coast took the lead 2? minutes before the break.
Samuel Jacob sent a free-kick into the Olympic box with Sasho Petrovski getting up well to head the ball goalward for the 2-1 lead.
The second-half was much of the same for Olympic, dominating possession but struggling to find the back of the net.
In the 61? minute Mayora had a great chance to equalise after being fed a great through ball, only to spray his shot well wide of the mark.
Sydney Olympic?s hopes of getting back into the game were dealt a huge blow on 64? minutes when Mayora was shown a yellow card before receiving a straight red for what seemed to be dissent.
Despite being down to ten men, the Blues continued to fight hard.
In the 75? minute Phil Makrys saw a succession of corners almost float in only for Collison to save the day,
The Wolves were forced to play counterattacking football as they sat back deep to try and hold Sydney Olympic out.
On 78? minutes Sasho Petrovski took the ball into the Olympic half before passing to Robinson on the left, with the latter cutting in before shooting straight at the waiting Paul Henderson.
With 8? minutes remaining, Kutaiba Elrich chipped the ball over the defensive line for his cousin Zac, only for Collison to come out well and thwart the chance, ending the game at 2-1.
Following the match, South Coast Wolves coach Trevor Morgan admitted his team were lucky to get away with the win:
?I thought the first-half we played well in the opening 20? minutes and deserved our goal,? he said.
?But the next 20? minutes, they dominated us so the first-half was 50/50.
?They really came at us and a minute before the break we put away another chance so really we were lucky to be leading at the break.
?They were very strong in that second-half. I think we did a lot of things wrong in the second-half, and they were desperate and really applied some pressure on us.
?Even after getting a player sent off they were still charging players at us. We?ve done very well to get the points here tonight but at the same time we didn?t get exposed for some of our errors.??
Sydney Olympic defender Brett Studman said his team were defeated after some school boy errors:
?I think we definitely dominated but if you don?t score, you don?t win,? he said.
?When you concede soft goals like that, those two headers you can?t miss as centre backs.
?You have to clear those kind of things, that?s poor defending so we only have ourselves to blame for that.??
Match Stats
Sydney Olympic 1 (Mayora 20?)
South Coast Wolves 2 (Picciolini 16?, Petrovski 43?)
Saturday 19th May, 2012
Belmore Sports Ground, Belmore
Referee: Adam Weir
Assistant Referees: Steven Nguyen and Scott Edeling
Fourth Official: David Christie
Sydney Olympic: 1.Paul Henderson; 3.Brett Studman, 7.Phil Makrys (C) (9.Aman Hadid 77?), 8.Peter Triantis, 10.Chris Triantis, 11.Will Angel, 12.Troy Danaskos, 14.Sam Awad (17.Kutaiba Elrich 65?), 18.David Dascal (15.Zac Elrich 60?), 21.Marton Vass, 24.Matthew Mayora
Substitutes Not Used: 16.Joel Woods
Yellow Cards: C. Triantis 45?, Studman 52?, Angle 54?, P. Triantis 55?, Mayora 64?, Makrys 72?
Red Cards: Mayora 64?
South Coast Wolves: 1.Daniel Collison; 2.Jack Keating, 4.Michael Robinson, 5.Nick Littler, 6.Samuel Jacob, 7.Cameron Littler (11.John Martinovski 60?), 8.Chris Nathaniel, 9.Mark Picciolini, 10.Sasho Petrovski, 13.Peter Simonovski (12.Sean Robertson 60?), 26.Jacob Timpano (C)
Substitutes Not Used: 14.Fabian Iacovelli
Yellow Cards: N. Littler 29?, Keating 31?, Robinson 53?, Petrovski 77?
Red Cards: Nil
Player Ratings:
3 – Daniel Collison (SCW)
2 – Chris Triantis (SO)
1 ? Phil Makrys (SO)
-By Chris Georges
