Round 5 Review – SELECT Futsal Premier League
SELECT Futsal Premier League round-5 results saw Dural Warriors defeat Mountain Majik 5-3, South Coast Taipans stun Campbelltown Quake 9-6, Enfield Allstars edge Mascot Vipers 5-4, and Inner West Magic pip UTS Northside 3-2.
Dural (15 points) and Inner West (13) go head-to-head as Campbelltown (9), Enfield (7), UTS (6), Mascot (3), South Coast (3) and the Mountaineers (3) look set for a top-four dogfight.
And after a string of low scoring rounds to start the summer it was gloves off as round-six scorelines culminated in the ninth-highest scoring weekend of all time – 37 goals (41 were scored in rounds 3, 13 and 14 of the 2013/14 season to set the mark).
Mountain Majik 3 (Joshua Ross, Jamie Dib, Aaron Fraser) Dural Warriors 5 (Glen Kelshaw 2, Matthew Leroy, Nathan Niski, Samuel De Oliveira)
Campbelltown Quake 6 (Mark Symington 2, Anthony Haddad 2, Dean Lockhart 2) South Coast Taipans 9 (David Stojic 2, Oliver Carrasco 2, Matt Mazevski 2, Ricky Goodchild 2, Kyle Del)
Inner West Magic 3 (Chris Zeballos, Daniel Fogarty, Daniel Fornito) UTS Northside 2 (Mason Ireland, Karim Moursi)
Mascot Vipers 4 (Shu Torihara 3, Hezio Silva Neto) Enfield Allstars 5 (Shervin Adeli 2, Michael Kouta, Charles Abou Serhal)
Dural overcome Mountain
Dural Warriors weren’t at their best but earned a comfortable 5-3 win against Mountain Majik at Blacktown Leisure Centre on Saturday afternoon.
Nathan Niski opened the scoring on the quarter-hour with Glen Kelshaw adding another moments later to give Dural a 2-0 halftime buffer.
The second-half was a tighter tussle as Samuel De Oliveira and a Kelshaw second pushed Warriors to a 4-0 lead before the Mountaineers halved the deficit with 10 minutes remaining through Joshua Ross and Aaron Fraser goals; but Dural steadied, Matthew Leroy scoring to make it 5-2 before a late consolation from Majik’s Jamie Dib.
It was Dural’s ninth win in nine Mountain meetings (Majik’s three-goal tally their highest output of all the match-ups) and Kelshaw in particular likes the fixture – he’s scored in five of the last six encounters.
Warriors coach Rob Varela was generally satisfied considering he was without the services of some major personnel.
“I’m happy with the three points given we had a couple of key players unavailable,” he said. “We controlled the game throughout against a team coming out of a great result the previous week, but I was very disappointed that we conceded a couple of very sloppy goals in the last few minutes.”
The Mountaineers have put in a couple of solid performances but it’s clear where they need to lift to be a finals contender – while seven different scorers in five games is a good spread, only one player has managed more than a solitary goal (Jamie Dib, 2)
South Coast shock Campbelltown
It was all eyes to Sydney’s south-west as South Coast Taipans beat Campbelltown Quake in a boilover at Minto Indoor Sports Centre on Saturday evening – their second straight success at Minto.
The visitors built a stunning 4-1 lead before two quick Quake goals inside the last 90 seconds of the first half made it a one-goal halftime difference.
South Coast were unperturbed and created a 7-3 cushion before Campbelltown’s powerplay saw more goals at both ends, Taipans registering a 9-6 victory that rewrote the club record books.
The 15-goal scoreline was premier league’s equal fourth-highest game total (Dural beat Enfield 11-7 in 2013/14, Enfield beat Majik 11-6 in 2015/16, and Mascot beat Western Raiders 10-6 way back in 2008/09), and it was also a game of doubles as Mark Symington, Anthony Haddad and Dean Lockhart braces for Quake were countered by David Stojic, Oliver Carrasco, Matt Mazevski and Ricky Goodchild pairs for Taipans.
Coast coach Bobby Mazevski wasn’t surprised by the performance: “The win tonight has been coming. We led from start to finish tonight despite Quake coming home strong. The boys took their chances tonight and I thought we deserved the result,” he said.
“It’s great to get the win against a quality side and I’m sure this will give the boys great confidence heading into next week’s match [against Mascot].
“I don’t think we have ever scored nine goals in an open men’s premier league match, so to do that tonight was very satisfying.”
He’s more than right. Nine Taipans goals blitzes the club’s previous high (a 6-8 loss to Enfield and 6-5 win over Campbelltown, both in 2015/16) and a three-goal winning margin is South Coast’s biggest of their 10 open men’s victories (from 47 contests).
It was also a third Taipans road win from their last seven away trips, and despite a four-game losing summer start never before has the club won three of seven league games (they won their final two games of last season).
“Like I’ve been saying, I think we have a handy side, we just haven’t been taking our chances,” Mazevski said. “We showed last night what we are capable of but won’t be getting carried away with that – there are no easy games in this league.”
For Campbelltown, only three times has a team scored more than six goals and not won – a 7-7 draw between Enfield and Mascot in 2013/14, a Vipers 7-8 loss to Phoenix in 2014/15, and a 7-11 Enfield loss to Dural in 2013/14; but they can take some comfort in being the competition’s highest scorers with 23 goals from the opening five weekends.
Inner West hold off Northside
Contrasting halves helped Inner West Magic to a tight 3-2 win versus UTS Northside at Valentine Sports Park on Saturday night.
The home side looked crisp in an electric first half that saw them take a 3-0 lead at the changeover courtesy of Chris Zeballos, Daniel Fogarty and Daniel Fornito goals, but UTS stormed back into the match and Mason Ireland and Karim Moursi both scored to make it a nervy 3-2 scoreline – the fulltime whistle bringing down the curtain on a slender Magic win.
Inner West club manager Matteo Maiorana was pleased with the result following a grueling week of matches: “In the first half it was total domination and we deservedly took a 3-0 lead; but credit to [Grant] Lynchy, UTS never stopped working and made a game out of it,” he said.
“We struggled in the second half with fatigue as we were still missing a number of players, and add in the extremely tough midweek Futsal Cup fixture caught up with us… but the boys are going nicely.”
“We have two big games in the next two weeks [versus top-three sides Warriors and Quake], so hopefully we can get some good results and stay with the main teams like Dural and Quake.”
Lynch paid tribute to his side giving themselves a chance at taking some points against the defending champions: “It was a good game and we could’ve snatched a point at the end, but both teams missed a number of chances,” he said.
It was Inner West’s sixth straight win against UTS following Northside’s sole victory in their debut clash, while Mountain-man Moursi has scored in the last three meetings.
Enfield edge Mascot
Enfield Allstars had their hands full in getting past a gallant Mascot Vipers 5-4 at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre on Saturday night.
The visitors raced to a 3-0 lead in the first 10 minutes before Mascot finally woke up to pull one goal back before the break and then leveled the scores at 3-3 with two brilliant counter-attacks to start the second term that put the game back on a knife’s edge.
Two quick Enfield goals restored a 5-3 advantage but the never-say-die Vipers narrowed the gap with another goal and went all-out to equalise before fulltime sounded with Allstars noses just in front – Shu Torihara scoring a hat-trick for the home side while Adeli fired in a second brace of the season for Enfield.
Mascot president Zvi Ben David applauded both sides for an entertaining match: “It was a great game to watch with some unbelievable goals scored, especially a volley from Shervin Adeli!” he said. “It was also played in good spirit.”
Torihara obviously enjoys playing Enfield – he’s scored seven times in the last five encounters; while Allstars’ Michael Kouta has bobbed up on the scoresheet for the third-straight time in the fixture.
Victory ended Enfield’s run of three winless matches, but Mascot really can’t take a trick at the moment – a third one-goal loss of the season proves they are a definite problem opponent, but they really need to be more clinical as a 34% success rate from a league-high 32 one-goal scorelines only betters Western Raiders (two wins in six close-call matches).
Next week’s games
SELECT Premier League round-6 Saturday matches feature South Coast Taipans against Mascot Vipers at the University of NSW Sports Hub (4.50pm), Mountain Majik face UTS Northside at Blacktown Leisure Centre (4.55pm), Inner West Magic play Campbelltown Quake at Valentine Sports Park (7.40pm), and Enfield Allstars host Dural Warriors at Morris Iemma Indoor Sports Centre (8.05pm).
-By Dan De Nardi
