Round 11 Review – SELECT Futsal Premier League
SELECT Futsal Premier League round-11 results saw leaders Inner West Magic down Mascot Vipers 3-1, Dural Warriors beat South Coast Taipans 4-1, Enfield Allstars trounce Mountain Majik 10-1 and Campbelltown Quake defeat UTS Northside 5-1.
Inner West (24 points) head Dural (21), Campbelltown (18), Enfield (17) and UTS (15) on the points table, while Quake’s Mark Symington (11 goals) lead Allstar Shervin Adeli (11) and Taipan Ricky Goodchild (10) on the scorers chart (Warrior Glen Kelshaw, Allstar Michael Kouta and Quake’s Dean Lockhart have eight each).
South Coast Taipans 1 (Ricky Goodchild) Dural Warriors 4 (Carlos De Oliveira 2, Greg Giovenali, Nathan Niski)
UTS Northside 1 (Nathan Amore) Campbelltown Quake 5 (Mark Symington, Danny Martinez 2, Shannon Fielding 2)
Enfield Allstars 10 (Michael Kouta 3, Kristopher Vlismas 2, Laureano Gomez Castro, Charles Abou Serhal, Noah Chia, Dominic Cox 2) Mountain Majik 1 ()
Mascot Vipers 1 () Inner West Magic 3 (Brian Griffin Colls, Daniel Fogarty, Matthew Lecce)
Dural Warriors 8 (Glen Kelshaw 3, Greg Giovenali, Nathan Niski, Jacob Basden, Ahmed Sweedan 2) Campbelltown Quake 3 (Daniel Martinez, Shaun Irwin, Harrison Bagot)
Warriors strike Taipans
Dural Warriors battled hard in a 4-1 defeat of South Coast Taipans at the University of Wollongong Sports Hub on Saturday evening that positioned them second on the ladder.
The visitors got off to a golden start with a goal inside 30 seconds but Taipans responded resolutely to keep the same scoreline to halftime, and they still looked promising 2-0 down midway through the second term when they had Dion Sterjovski sent off and Dural scored to make it 3-0.
South Coast sniper Ricky Goodchild pulled a goal back with five minutes to go but a last-minute Warriors strike put the icing on a 4-1 cake.
Dural coach Rob Varela had only three senior players available and praised his young brigade for stepping up the way they did after a zapping 8-3 midweek victory against Campbelltown.
“[They] were terrific,” he said. “It was a measured performance having to back up from a catch-up game on Thursday night. It’s a tough run home coming up and we’ll need to be at our best.”
Taipans coach Bobby Mazevski was happy with his side’s effort after going behind so early in the game. “It was a sloppy defensive goal really [but] we settled into the game and created enough to give as good as we got and down 1-0 at halftime things weren’t looking too bad,” he said.
“Despite going two down about 10 minutes into the second half I thought we gave ourselves some good looks at goal and could still get something from the game. The turning point for me came about midway through when we had a player sent off for ill discipline and Dural capitalised to make it 3-0.”
“We threw what we had at Dural but they defended well and caught us on the break in the final minute to record a 4-1 win,” Mazevski said.
“To beat Dural we need to defend better, be more disciplined and take our chances. We didn’t do that and subsequently didn’t deserve to win.
“We’ll keep battling and try and learn as much as we can from this season which despite the results I think has been a huge improvement on previous seasons.”
Quake shake Northside
Campbelltown Quake bounced backed from a midweek 3-8 loss to Dural to defeat UTS Northside 5-1 at PCYC Dee Why on Saturday evening and maintain a top-three spot.
The visitors certainly looked like they had something to prove and went 3-0 up on 10 minutes courtesy of Mark Symington, Danny Martinez and Shannon Fielding deliveries, UTS wrestling their way back into the contest until a second Martinez goal sealed their fate in the 43rd minute – Nathan Amore scoring for Northside before a final Fielding goal settled the affair.
Martinez was full of smiles after netting a ninth goal in six UTS encounters, but a fourth-straight win against Northside had his dad Campbelltown Quake manager Carlos Martinez giving a double thumbs up.
“Both teams were depleted, but they were missing many more,” he said. “We controlled it and did what we were expected under the circumstances. There were good minutes to the young ones and much-needed three points!”
Enfield avalanche Mountain
Enfield Allstars minced Mountain Majik 10-1 at Morris Iemma Indoor Sports Centre on Saturday night, the club’s highest-ever premier league winning margin.
Laureano Gomez Castro and Kris Vlismas got the ball rolling before a Michael Kouta double in four minutes put Allstars 4-0 ahead on the quarter-hour, Kouta completing his hat-trick in the second term alongside Vlismas and Dominic Cox doubles to underpin the nine-goal victory.
The score-fest is no surprise given these two sides average 9.3 goals per meeting but the result was a huge turnaround for Enfield from last year’s festive season return when pummeled 10-1 by Dural in the new year and just two victories in their last seven games saw them drop from first to third.
Enfield’s first win over the Mountaineers in three runs follows an earlier season loss 0-1 and epic 6-6 draw in December 2016, and triple-goal assassin Kouta was again at the forefront notching up a 10th goal in six Majik meetings.
Allstars coach Ernie Bivona refused to gloat about the club-record margin – a fifth double-figure score moving Enfield closer to Dural’s record eight – but he was satisfied with the positive outcome despite a couple of players looking like they’d eaten too much Christmas panettone.
“I don’t want to disrespect Majik as they had to play a young bunch of kids, many of who had just played the youth game… they actually had to put their youth keeper on the field at one stage,” he said.
“But I was concerned with the first game back; we started well and just kept going.”
Magic beat Vipers
Inner West Magic overcame Mascot Vipers 3-1 in a rugged match at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre on Saturday night.
Missing influential duo Jonathan Barzel and Chris Barzel, Inner West still built a 2-0 lead through goals from Brian Griffin-Colls and Daniel Fogarty, Mascot pegging a goal back midway through the second half before an absolute Magic beauty saw Matthew Lecce finish off a sweeping team movement with a back-post tap-in to seal the two-goal win.
Inner West club manager Matteo Maiorana called it a “typical hard-fought Magic v Vipers arm wrestle”.
“[Mascot off-court leader Ben David] Zvi has a team which is a lot better then where their position on the table shows. We were missing a number of players and the boys had to dig deep but I’ve never seen a team work as hard as this Magic team does,” he said.
“Nothing epitomised that more than Brian Griffin-Colls having a shot saved then sprinting the length of the court back in defence to slide and clear the ball off the line within 10 seconds!
“Spaniard [Fran] Calle is really fitting in nicely with the team and Fogarty was at his influential best. There are three games left and two of those are against Dural and Quake so the title is in our hands, [with a favourable for-and-against] we know two wins in the last three games will seal us another Premiership.”
To underline the veracity of this fixture, Inner West may dominate results with 12 wins and three draws from the last 16 encounters, but not since January 2008 have Magic won by more than three goals.
This weekend’s matches
SELECT Futsal Premier League round-12 Saturday matches (January 27) has South Coast Taipans versus Campbelltown Quake at the University of Wollongong Sports Hub (4.50pm), UTS Northside against Inner West Magic at PCYC Dee Why (6.40pm), Dural Warriors host Mountain Majik at The Centre (6.50pm), and Enfield Allstars tackle Mascot Vipers at Morris Iemma Indoor Sports Centre (8.05pm).
-By Dan De Nardi
