Second-half domination sees Sydney Olympic demolish Parramatta FC

Former Parramatta FC striker Kutaiba Elrich opened the scoring for the Blues before Chris Triantis and a double to substitute Matthew Mayora rounded out the result.
It was Parramatta FC however who started the match on the front foot creating the first chance on the counter. In the 3? minute a long ball by Andy Matloub found former Blues striker Joel Wood in space who squared the ball to a free Bruno Pivato whose soft shot went straight to Paul Henderson.
3? minutes later, Parramatta FC created another opening as Wood combined with Patrick Dixon – the latter failing to trouble Henderson.
The early chances seemed to wake the Blues up as they quickly started controlling possession, pinning the Eagles in their own half.
Good work by Troy Danaskos and David Gullo down the left hand touchline in the 17? minute led to Gullo sending a dangerous cross into the box with Parramatta scrambling to clear the ball.
As the game progressed both teams fought hard in the middle of the park with the referee being forced to blow the whistle on several occasions awarding fouls.
Parramatta?s hard work was ruined in the 34? minute when they were reduced to ten men as captain Luke Grima was shown his second yellow card after going into a challenge late on Brett Studman.
Despite the red card, the Eagles created a chance 5? minutes later. As the Blues failed to clear a corner, Nomoto put the ball back into the box finding a free Dixon on the back post. Luckily for the visitors, right back Emmanuel Giannaros closed Dixon?s angle and blocked his shot to keep the game scoreless.
A minute later Nicholas Napoli found the ball in space in Sydney Olympic?s half, unleashing a low drive as he approached the box only to be thwarted by Henderson tapping the ball out for a corner.
As the half time whistle approached a great play by the Eagles midfield ended in Wood laying off the ball to Pivato wide on the right whose shot just missed the left hand upright.
Despite not recording a shot on target in the first-half, Sydney Olympic were quick out of the blocks in the second.
Sydney Olympic coach Peter Tsekenis turned to his bench at half-time replacing David Gullo with Will Angel on the left hand side, producing almost immediate success.
Angel beat Aaron Peterson before sending a cross to Chris Triantis who took a touch before shooting the ball goalwards only to be saved on the line by Andy Matloub.
It didn?t take long however for the Blues to take the lead as Kutaiba Elrich poked the ball into the back of the net as Parramatta failed to clear a corner.
Olympic continued to peg the Eagles in their own half and doubled their lead in the 67^? minute. Chris Triantis took the ball past four defenders before putting the ball between the legs of Matthew Nash to give his side a 2-0 lead.
Fans didn?t have a chance to re-take their seats before Sydney Olympic made it 3-0. Nash misjudged coming out for the ball in the 68? minute as substitute Matthew Mayora took the ball past the goalkeeper and struck the ball into an empty net.
Mayora was not done there as he doubled his personal tally in the 76? minute. As Olympic created an overlap, Phil Makrys played a lovely through ball to the striker who took it past the goalkeeper and put the ball into the back of the net from a difficult angle, making it 4-0.
The former A-League striker was hungry for his hat-trick and almost had it in the 85? minute. After great work by Zak Elrich he crossed the ball to the oncoming Mayora who had his header expertly saved by Nash.
Following the match Sydney Olympic coach Peter Tsekenis said his team needed a wake up call at half-time:
?We came here and saw the conditions weren?t very good and I was a bit frustrated that the boys weren?t following the game plan,?? he said.
?We sorted it out in the second-half and regardless whether they had ten men or not we still had to do what we had to do.
?We stuck to our game plan then and got some fruit for it. We scored some goals and we could?ve scored a few more and totally dominated that second-half.
?It?s very tough coming here needing to get a result to stay with the top three teams and playing against a team at the bottom of the table is not always easy.
?Credit to them in the first-half, they gave us a really good hit out.??
In the home dressing room Parramatta FC coach Lee Sterrey was bewildered with his side?s second-half performance:
?I was really proud of them in the first-half, the way we stuck to our guns. I thought we had them under pressure and had some decent opportunities so I was really proud.
?But following the break, I don?t know what was in the drink at half-time, though we were a different team. You can?t go out with ten men against a good Olympic side and have one or two don?t turn up mentally.
?Again we are talking about youthfulness and things like that, but the buck stops when you are playing at this level.
?We had two or three blokes switch off in the second-half, which was a little bit of naivety and it cost us.
?So even though we got beat 4-0 against a good Olympic side I think there were positives to take out of that first-half.??
Match Stats
Parramatta FC 0
Sydney Olympic 4 (Kutaiba Elrich 50?, Chris Triantis 67?, Matthew Mayora 76?, 80?)
Parramatta FC: 1.Mathew Nash; 3.Andy Matloub, 4.Domenic Trimboli, 7.Patrick Dixon, 9.Aaron Peterson, 11.Bruno Pivato, 13.Joel Wood (19.Daniel Rezo 76?), 15.Masaki Nomoto, 16.Daniel Gullo (12.David Han 75?), 17.Luke Grima (C), 18.Nicholas Napoli (2.Stipe Jakovljevic 73?)
Substitutes Not Used: 8.Bryan Soane, 30.Michal Sakowicz
Yellow Cards: Luke Grima 9?, 34?
Red Cards: Luke Grima 34?
Sydney Olympic: 1.Paul Henderson; 2.Emmanuel Giannaros, 3.Brett Studman, 4.Ibrahim Haydar, 7.Phil Makrys (C), 8.Peter Triantis, 10.Chris Triantis, 12.Troy Danaskos,  17.Kutaiba Elrich (15.Zak Elrich 76?), 19.David Gullo (11.Will Angel 46?) , 21.Marton Vass (24.Matthew Mayora 54?)
Substitutes Not Used: 14.Sam Awad, 32.Luke Kairies
Yellow Cards: Marton Vass 37?
Red Cards: Nil
-By Chris Georges