Futsal Premier League Round 7 Review
Christmas came early for the Football NSW Futsal Premier League with a tree-full of round seven Saturday night surprises showing Dural and Enfield even 6-6, while Campbelltown beat Inner West 8-3, Mascot downed South Coast 5-2, and Mountain Majik celebrated a first-win 5-3 against UTS Northside.
A blistering 38 weekend goals is the fifth-highest Premier League output in the past five years, just shy of a smoldering 41 scored in rounds 12, 13 and 14 to close out the 2013/14 summer.
Quake’s dazzling double success against Majik (6-3) and Magic (8-3) this week arranges Campbelltown (13 points) in second behind Dural (19), with Mascot (10) a surprise third followed by Inner West (9) and Enfield (8). Catch-up games will be played in the next few weeks. Visit the Football NSW website (Futsal tab) for full details.
Dural Warriors 6 (Chris Polkinghorne 2, Blake Rosier, Vic Koutsoufis, Glen Kelshaw, Wade Giovenali) Enfield Rovers 6
Inner West Magic 3 (Chris Zeballos, Michael Cimino, Daniel Fogarty) Campbelltown Quake 8 (Mark Symington 5, Patrick Antelmi 2, Harley Da Silva)
UTS Northside 3 (Lucas Dawson, Jun Arima, Grant Lynch) Mountain Majik 5 (Jordan Guerreiro 2, Chris Barbera, Pouria Bashardoust, Marco Turpeinen)
Mascot Vipers 5 (Tuan Cao 2, Edilson Silva, Jun Kato, Shu Torihara) South Coast Taipans 2 (Takao Teramoto, Franc Pierro)
Dural, Enfield draw
A 6-6 deadlock between Rovers and Warriors at Dural Sport & Leisure Centre had it all as Enfield put a huge exclamation mark on this year’s premiership.
The gunslingers entered the Leisure Centre Corral at 10-paces but by the changeover there was debris scattered all over the main street with Enfield 3-2 up.
A determined Chris Polkinghorne brace made ensured Warriors figured in the second term despite the Rovers slotting home a late penalty that propelled them to a 6-5 lead, only to see Dural grab a share of the spoils with a goal straight from the restart to level it up at the fulltime hooter.
The second-highest scoring premier league draw (a Vipers versus Rovers match finished 7-7 in 2013/14) elevated Enfield as the most-successful club against perennial champions Dural [over the past five years] and maintained their stable top-four situation.
Quake rattle Magic
Campbelltown Quake showed true character in a gallant 8-3 win over Inner West Magic at Valentine Sports Park, Mark Symington the hero of the day with a mammoth five-goal haul.
The two great rivals went hammer-and-tong from kickoff, Campbelltown perhaps taking advantage of a rusty Inner West outfit (they’ve missed two weekends of action) to establish a 2-1 halftime edge that they carried home in a dominant second-half to run out deserved five-goal victors – Patrick Antelmi bagging a double and Harley Da Silva also scoring for the travelers.
Coupled with Thursday night’s 6-3 win against Mountain Majik the result places Quake into a temporary top-two position (Rovers and Magic have matches in hand), and given Campbelltown’s precarious bottom club championship spot brings much-needed respite.
Club stalwart Carlos Martinez dropped his Sunday lawn-mowing duties the second the phone rang. “What a great result!” he remarked.
“I think what propelled it was really last week’s embarrassment [a 10-1 loss to Dural] and the whole squad took a long, hard look at themselves.
“We started on Thursday with the catch-up win against Majik, which wasn’t a great performance but it was a win and that put the loss behind us… and at halftime [against Inner West] the coach [Simon Keith] asked where this team had been all season.
“What he meant was the intensity in the play, the tackles and passing; last week we got pumped and this week we ran all over them,” he said. “What this has said to us is you have to go out there and be ready or teams will put you away.
“We’ve steadied the ship in men and youth men, we’re back on track, but we do need club championship points like gold [Campbelltown face closet rivals South Coast in the last round before Christmas].”
It’s not Symington’s first five-goal rampage, notching up the same amount against Dural last summer to join guns Shervin Adeli (Enfield v Phoenix, 2013/14), Lachlan Wright (Enfield v Boomerangs, 2013/14), Daniel Fulton (Boomerangs v Enfield, 2011/12) and Chris Zeballos (Sydney City Eagles v South Coast, 2011/12) as the most explosive league players.
The Campbelltown loyalist’s 13 goals in seven games is now five ahead of Mascot’s Andrea Gallina and over the past five years Symington’s 66 league strikes is only rivaled by Enfield’s Shervin Adeli (78) and Dural’s Greg Giovenali (71), Quake team-mate Danny Martinez (55) the only other player to knock up a half-century of goals over the same time frame. [Next come Daniel Fulton (48), Lachlan Wright (41), Daniel Fogarty (38) and Toby Seeto (38)]
“Symo is a pretty special kid,” Martinez said. “He’s Quake family. He grew up in the area [Macquarie Fields]; he’s the club captain and someone the other players look up to.”
“He’s very motivated by the club’s success and is a different kind of scorer to someone like Shervin Adeli who’s that kind of freak who can create something out of nothing. Symo feeds off a team effort; he’s there to put them away, but he’s definitely not going un-noticed. He’s gone on tours with the Futsalroos… and he’s the first pick in any Quake team.”
Vipers squeeze Taipans
Mascot Vipers showed who’s ‘King of the Snakes’ with a 5-2 victory over South Coast Taipans at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre.
Leading 2-1 at the break the home side went on with it in a clinical second term to chalk up win number three and catapult Mascot to a top-three place on the competition ladder.
Club chief Ben Zvi David was ecstatic. “At the beginning of the second half a passage of 10 minutes killed the game off,” he said. “The boys just gelled together and when they’re on song they’re very good. Even South Coast supporters said to me they’re just so enjoyable to watch.”
“These kids are off the cuff; they’re playing with natural ability. They may lack a bit of the discipline of other clubs like Dural, Inner West and Quake but if we can make the top-four it will be a great achievement.”
The result again underlined Mascot’s progression as a senior men’s force (a third win and draw already outperforming their past two season’s output), but what it highlights more is the Vipers capacity to churn out capable Futsal players.
Over the past five years 40 different Vipers have scored a goal in the open men’s category – 11 more than nearest Inner West (Dural’s had 23 scorers).
It certainly shows a propensity to develop juniors into mature Futsallers, but the flipside for Mascot is that it’s then challenging to hold onto all of the club’s talent.
“We have always had great youth players coming through, and it’s very hard to keep them all at Vipers,” Zvi David said.
“We used to have the greatest Futsal player ever at the club, Yavus Ekinci, and since then we have introduced a lot of kids to the game and have always believed in giving developing players a go.
“I really don’t care where these great Mascot juniors end up, as we really can’t keep them all here, but as long as they keep playing and keep improving then that’s good for the league.”
Majik cast aside Northside
Mountain Majik summoned the spirit within to record a long-overdue 5-3 win against YTS Northside at the Sydney Academy of Sport & Recreation, ending an 11-game win-less run.
It was neck-and-neck all the way as Majik held onto a slender 4-2 halftime advantage, the Mountaineers relieved to hear the final whistle with their two-goal buffer intact – Jordan Guerreiro scoring twice supported by Chris Barbera, Pouria Bashardoust and Marco Turpeinen strikes.
Northside have been a premier league sensation since last summer’s elevation and is challenging for the club championship, but they’d surely love to make it more comfortable for themselves in the open men’s section – 15 of their 20 matches played have been decided by two goals or less; the five-year league average is just under 50% of 259 fixtures decided by the same amount.
This week’s games
Football NSW Futsal Premier League round eight Saturday night has South Coast Taipans welcome Inner West Magic to the University of Wollongong Sports Hub (5.40pm), Campbelltown Quake host Enfield Rovers at Minto Indoor Sports Centre (6.55pm), UTS Northside face Dural Warriors at Sydney Boys High School (7.30pm), and Mountain Majik meet Mascot Vipers at Valentine Sports Park (7.30pm).
-By Dan De Nardi
