Suns stun Sharks in Shire thriller
Alec Urosevski and Pece Cvetanovski provided the Suns with the winning goals, one on either side of Niko Tsattalios? momentary equaliser.
The two sides met for the second time this season at Seymour Shaw ? the Suns forced to play its Round 4 ?home? encounter at the venue when the new drainage work to Ilinden Sports Ground Rockdale was not complete.
The pace from the outset was fast and furious as both came out of the blocks looking for the early control with passes pinging around like a pinball machine. One of the highlights of the evening was the battle between Dylan Macallister (Rockdale) and George Souris, the Sharks captain back to lead the Sharks for the first time in the League after many weeks, was a highlight.
Rockdale appeared to settle the quicker, although only just shading it, albeit the Sharks were happy to concede ground at times and work out from the back and never looked truly threatened in defence with Nathan Denham showing imperious command between the sticks.
Chris Price broke through the Suns defence down the left, pulled the ball back onto his right foot but skewed the shot that Ryan Norval needed a couple of attempts to gather.
At the other end Macallister beat Denham only to see the ball bounce back into play off the far post, dropping for Alec Urosevski to prod toward the net to see a goal line clearance away for a corner in real end to end football.
It was the wake-up call Sutherland needed as they upped a gear to face the challenge before them as it left no-one in any doubt the Suns were here to win, not just make up the numbers.
In the 21? minute Hussein Salameh was put through with a delightful ball over the top and his effort narrowly slipped over the crossbar as the Sharks pressed for an opener in a tremendously fine balanced game.
Panni Nikas fired a curling free-kick, conceded by Suns captain Pece Cvetanovski 25-yards out, goalward in the 29? minute that had Norval scrambling across his line to stifle, followed by a Nick Stavroulakis, typically tigerish in midfield, long-range effort moments later that again slipped over the bar.
Price was next to show with a left-footed effort from the angle of the box that caused some concern before it too went wide of the far upright as the home side began to carve out a few opportunities in a to-and-fro contest.
Tommy Cirjak returned fire in the 38? minute for Rockdale however the shot was deflected away for a corner which resulted in no further threat to the Sharks goal.
In tit-for-tat fashion, Sutherland?s Yianni Fragogianis tried his luck from distance that again went narrowly wide, the deadlock remaining unbroken in a thoroughly entertaining 45? minutes.
In the second-half, Giorgio Speranza picked up a clever back heel from Cirjak before slipping the ball to Urosevski who in turn pulled it back for Speranza who curled a right footed shot just wide of the far post with Denham unsighted by his defenders. It was a sublime move down the left flank for Rockdale, arguably the side?s best up to that point, very slick and fast paced.
It was followed moments later when Urosevski opened the scoring for the visitors with an unstoppable effort that left Denham with no chance.
The goal forced Sharks coach Robbie Stanton to make a change, and he replaced striker Hussein Salameh with substitute, and recent Sydney FC signing, Blake Powell as the home side were now forced to play catch up football.
Salameh didn?t look happy coming off and went straight down the tunnel looking dismayed, although showing no outward signs of injury.
Urosevski almost added a second for Rockdale in the 60? minute but Denham was down sharply to smother the danger as the reshuffled pack of Sutherland powered forward in search of an equaliser.
The Suns were not resting on their laurels and played smart controlled football with Sutherland targeting their right flank on several occasions that caused nervous panic in the visiting defence, yet they held strong and thwarted everything coming their way.
Cvetanovski believed he had sewn up the points for Rockdale when beating Denham from just outside the box, only for the ball to crash back into play off the upright for the second time on the evening as they exploited the gaps left by Sutherland and utilised their pace to outstrip their markers.
However, they were finally caught out when Niko Tsattalios restored parity finishing off a fine move for Sutherland as the pendulum swung back again.
Sash Tirovski was put on for Paul Kohler with Mark Rudan this time taking immediate action after the opposition scored, and the move worked immediately when Cvetanovski restored the Suns lead with a thunderous effort inside the box in the 83? minute.
In stoppage time, the outrageous tempo the match had been played in continued unabated but for all the bluff and bluster shown by Sutherland it was Rockdale who stood firm under pressure to continue their fine form of recent times.
Suns coach Mark Rudan stated:
?There is a lot of resolve about this team and I mentioned it and drove it into the boys last week and the longer the season progresses I find something new about them to bring up that?s positive about this team.
?Last week we showed a lot of character to win the game in stoppage time and not many teams can do that.
?We?ve come from behind in the past to win games and now we are learning to win from the front, but after we got our goal they gained the ascendency, equalised and the next 5? minutes after that was always going to be difficult but we stood strong.
?It?s important that we have that belief now and away from home, on this pitch we were made to work very hard for the points and having watched Sutherland win the Waratah Cup Final last weekend there was a lot there we needed to take from that game.
?We?ve worked hard this week in training both in offence and defence to counter them, and we got the result tonight.
?Full credit to Robbie (Stanton), his teams play some beautiful football, they really do and are blessed with this pitch so training doesn?t get called off that often, but again the players still need to do the work and he has them doing so and they played fantastically last weekend,? ended Rudan.
Robbie Stanton said for the Sharks:
?I think Rockdale probably deserved their win tonight, they had that bit more hunger, more desire and determination.
?We were a bit slow out of the blocks than we usually are and we didn?t get our passing game going as quickly and sharply as in the past and maybe that was due to last week (the Waratah Cup Final win over APIA Leichhardt Tigers) where we overdid it a bit.
?I just feel we were not up for it tonight until the second-half and it wasn?t until we went a goal behind that we upped the gears a bit and got something back, but then we just switched off a bit and defended poorly there and we lost the game.
?To be honest I think that had we got the draw we would have to count ourselves lucky so credit to Rockdale as they deserved their win tonight.?
Match Stats
Sutherland Sharks 1 (Niko Tsattalios 76?)
Rockdale City Suns 2 (Alec Urosevski 51?, Cvetanovski 83?)
Saturday 14th July, 2012
Seymour Shaw Park, Miranda
Referee: James Lewis
Assistant Referees: Michael Robertson and Sam Grasso
Fourth Official: Sebastian Brennan
Sutherland Sharks: 1.Nathan Denham; 2.George Souris (C), 4.Yianni Fragogianis, 5.Paul Cotte, 6.Matthew Gordon, 8.Chris Price, 9.Hussein Salameh (19.Blake Powell 55?), 12.Hayden Morton, 13.Niko Tsattalios, 14.Nick Stavroulakis, 23.Panni Nikas
Substitutes Not Used: 3.Tyson Rhodes, 11.Todd Halloran, 17.Pat Savor, 22.Simon Jaeger
Yellow Cards: Nil
Red Cards: Nil
Rockdale City Suns: 1.Ryan Norval; 2.Takuya Muruyama, 3.Giorgio Speranza, 5.Pece Cvetanovski (C), 8.Paul Kohler (17.Sash Tirovski 77?), 9.Dylan Macallister, 15.Tommy Cirjak (11.David Talevski 89?), 16.Anthony Perri, 18.Alec Urosevski (10.Jason Naidovski 90?+3?), 21.Ricky Perinich, 23.Askin Oygur
Substitutes Not Used: 19.Marino Musumeci, 22.Aaron Liddell
Yellow Cards: Perenich 79?, Cirjak 86?
Red Cards: Nil
-By Micky Brock
