Suns put three past luckless Mariners Academy
A hot and cold Rockdale City Suns stumbled past Central Coast Mariners Academy on Sunday afternoon with a hard fought yet strangely unconvincing 3-0 win at Ilinden Sports Ground.
Despite trailing to Alec Urosevski’s early opener, Mariners Academy matched the Suns for extended periods of the match and were unfortunate not to find themselves on level terms when Matthew Crowell struck the post with a second-half penalty.
Suns then tactically capitalised on their opponent’s late desperation with goals to Richard Cardozo and Brendan Gan striking on the counterattack to seal what was a deceptively emphatic win on the scoreboard.
Upsets elsewhere in the league saw Suns jump into third on the ladder while Mariners Academy are left to continue their frustrating search for a first win of the season to give themselves hope of moving off the bottom of the table.
Both sides settled into their strides quickly as they moved the ball around with fluency from the outset.
Rockdale appeared to be the more positive of the two and grabbed the early ascendancy as they took full advantage of their first opportunity of the match.
The hosts found Takuya Murayama in space on the right flank; the right sided defender delivered a dangerous driven ball across the 6-yard box which was clinically diverted past Jordan Nikolovski by Urosevski.
The hosts went close to doubling their advantage minutes later when Cardozo lined up a free-kick from the edge of the box, however Cardozo who bagged a spectacular goal and two assists last weekend couldn’t find the target as he curled the ball just wide of the near post.
Mariners Academy looked to recover from their early setback as they hunted for an equaliser with target man James Monie holding the ball up well in attack while Tomislav Cirjak looked a threat in midfield against their former club.
Nikolovski and Diego Barcena did exceptionally well to keep their opponents at bay midway through the half as both keepers produced spectacular saves.
Anthony Perri tested Nikolovski from the edge of the box and while the keeper parried the shot into Cardozo’s path the keeper reacted sharply to recover and block Cardozo’s follow up shot from point blank.
At the other end Mariners Academy lined up a free kick from the edge of the box after Paul Kohler dragged Monie to the ground and received a booking for his troubles.
Crowell drove the resulting free-kick into the wall; the rebound fell to Jed Prater who volleyed a powerful strike toward goal only for Barcena to pull out a spectacular diving save to push the ball wide.
Sublime control of a long ball on the chest put Monie in a decent scoring position soon after yet the striker couldn’t get his finish on target as his lob beat both Barcena and the crossbar with the keeper left stranded well off his line.
Rockdale looked the more likely to score for the remainder of the half albeit from long range as Cardozo blazed over from 25-yards before Paul Reid tried his luck from a similar range to draw a fine block from Nikolovski with the final shot of the half.
Perri looked to dart into the box to create another chance before the interval only to run into a fine last ditch tackle by Louis Bozanic as Rockdale took their single goal lead into the sheds.
Chances were few and far between after the restart with the hosts continuing to try their luck from range without success.
Mariners Academy were handed a golden opportunity to equalise when Themba Matua-Marlow was adjudged to have fouled Monie in the box; the foul was the defender’s only slip up in the match after he was brought into the side in place of the suspended Askin Oygur.
Crowell failed to capitalise as he was perhaps pressured by the jeers of the crowd before dragging his spot kick onto the post to let Rockdale off the hook.
The visitors were almost punished for the miss on Rockdale’s next attack when substitute Idriss El Hafiane sent a defence splitting pass through to Urosevski up the centre of the park however captain Jamie Lobb saved the day in outpacing and outmuscling the striker before calmly playing out from the back.
Mariners Academy continued to press Rockdale in search of an equaliser yet while their general gameplay was positive and they appeared dangerous in the final third they lacked the confidence to test Barcena in the Rockdale goal.
With Monie tiring coach Mark Jones opted to throw former Sydney FC striker Chris Payne into his attack and the substitutes added energy kept Rockdale’s backline on their toes.
The hosts came close to finding a two goal cushion later in the half when Urosevski fed the ball to substitute Toufic Alameddine in the box however Nikolovski was on hand to produce yet another fantastic save to parry the ball away for a corner to keep his side in contention.
Payne came close to finding an equaliser soon after when he almost connected with Daniel Bragg’s crossed free-kick, however Barcena was well positioned to block the ball at the expense of a corner.
In pressing forward the Mariners Academy left themselves often exposed at the back as Rockdale began to absorb the pressure and smartly hit their opponents on the counterattack.
Rockdale spurned a pair of glorious late chances as Cardozo saw his casual finish easily saved by Nikolovski before Urosevski stole possession from Liam O’Dell only to scuff his shot well over the crossbar from a one-on-one position.
Despite their misses the pair combined well to score in the final minute of normal time as Urosevski flicked a ball over to Cardozo who controlled the ball well on the chest before tucking the ball past the keeper to give his side a two goal buffer.
The fans had barely taken their seats when Gan put the icing on the cake for the hosts with a scrappy third in injury time; the former Sydney FC midfielder saw his first attempt blocked before he stabbed home his second attempt to wrap up the win for Rockdale.
The result sees Rockdale move up into third position on the ladder while Mariners Academy continue to languish on the foot of the table as they continue the search for their first win of the campaign.
While Rockdale City Suns coach Branko Culina will take the win he was far from impressed with the overall performance of his squad having witnessed them loosen their grip on the match in sections of both halves:
“It wasn’t a great performance, even in the first-half,” said Culina.
“I think we scored too early if there’s such a problem.
“Playing the team on the bottom of the table we perhaps thought this would be an easy one and it was far from it.
“Credit to Mark Jones and his squad who made it tough for us but having said that we made it tough for ourselves.
“We didn’t do the basic things well enough that we would normally do and we didn’t really go on with the job.
“At half-time I told them to forget about the score and reminded them that it’s the performance that matters but that must not have been inspirational as we were on the back foot after that.
“We were fortunate that they didn’t score the penalty which could have changed the game but we were always in control.
“We didn’t create a glut of chances but we created some chance and were a bit selfish as well with late chances for Cardozo and Alec Urosevski.
“It wasn’t a great performance, not one I’d like for us to be associated with.”
Despite his side now jumping up to third on the table Culina’s eyes are trained on maximising the performance of his squad rather than focussing on the ladder:
“It’s too early to start thinking about the ladder,” said Culina.
“I didn’t look at it after the first two games when we were last or second last and I’m not going to look at it now.
“It’s early days and we’ve got a tough draw coming up with Sutherland away from home and then Blacktown followed by Sydney United after that.
“They’re difficult games, but there are no easy games as we saw today.
“We’ve got lots of players missing – Sash Tirovski we’ve lost to work commitments, Michael Cindric has been out, Paul Reid just came back for the first time in five weeks – so we’ve got seven out of our sixteen today were under the age of eighteen which is just far too many week in week out.
“I’m pleased with our youngsters but to have seven on the team sheet is just too many to carry.
“If you take away those first two games which we lost both of we’ve gone eight games in good form but it’s the performance that I’m looking for and today wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.”
Central Coast Mariners Academy coach Mark Jones was notably disappointed with the result after his side had kept themselves in contention and perhaps should have taken something from the game before succumbing to two late goals:
“I’m extremely disappointed,” said Jones.
“We missed an open goal when James (Monie) lobbed the keeper; nine times out of ten or even ninety nine times out of one hundred you score like that so he misses that when we should have been at 1-1.
“Then we go in 1-0 down at half-time and we think we can run over the top of them in the second half which I thought we did, then we don’t score our penalty and then in injury time we cop two goals to make it 3-0 which makes it look like it was an easy game.
“It was far from that; if you ask Branko he might say we were the better team but on the scoreboard the best team is the team that wins.
“At this stage that’s really annoying me to the point that if we can’t do that job then in the transfer window we’ll purchase up to four players of which we’ve already got two.
“We’ll play with more experience in the second half of the season and try to get ourselves up the table.
“We’ve played games where we have dominated possession and dominated opportunities but have just got nothing from it and it’s just not good enough.”
This week Jones will be looking to dive into the transfer market with a number of new signings to address certain issues he has identified across the park:
“We obviously need a striker,” said Jones.
“We’ve got our eye on another centre back and I think we need a 7 or 11 to help our striker so we’ll look to buy that.”
Match Stats
Rockdale City Suns 3 (Alec Urosevski 4’, Richard Cardozo 90’, Brendan Gan 90’+2’)
Central Coast Mariners Academy 0
Sunday May 19th, 2013
Ilinden Sports Ground
Referee: Andrew Best
Assistant Referees: Samuel Grasso and James Tesoriero
Fourth Official: Lachlan Daniel
Rockdale City Suns: 1.Diego Barcena; 5.Brendan Gan, 6.Takuya Murayama, 8.Paul Kohler, 9.Alec Urosevski, 10.Richard Cardozo, 13.Sam Munro, 14.Paul Reid (20.Roberto Speranza 60’), 16.Anthony Perri (12.Idriss El Hafiane 60’), 18.Seiya Kawamura (38.Toufic Alameddine 71’), 21.Themba Muata-Marlow
Substitutes Not Used: 3.Giorgio Speranza, 22.Aaron Liddell
Yellow Cards: Paul Kohler 24’, Themba Muata-Marlow 55’, Diego Barcena 56’
Red Cards: Nil
Central Coast Mariners Academy: 1.Jordan Nikolovski; 2.Matthew Crowell, 3.Jamie Lobb, 8.Daniel Bragg, 9.James Monie (6.Christopher Payne 71’), 10.Tomislav Cirjak, 11.Louis Bozanic (21.Dillon Vorster 54’), 16.Jed Prater, 26.Ridge Mapu, 22.Liam O’Dell, 29.Daniel McFarlane (7.Scott Pettit 71’)
Substitutes Not Used: 4.Joel Mardwick, 20. Irmoko Behan
Yellow Cards: Scott Pettit 78’
Red Cards: Nil
Player Ratings:
3 – Takuya Murayama (RCS)
2 – Jamie Lobb (CCMA)
1 – Daniel Bragg (CCMA)
-By Michael Shoolman
