SELECT Futsal Premier League – Round 5 Open Men’s Preview
SELECT Futsal Premier League round 5 Saturday features Mountain Majik versus Mascot Vipers at Hawkesbury Indoor Stadium (4.10pm), Inner West Magic face Enfield Allstars at Valentine Sports Park (6.20pm), UTS Northside play Dural Warriors at PCYC Dee Why (7.20pm), and Eastern Suburbs Hakoah meet Campbelltown Quake at All Sorts Indoor Sports centre (8.50pm).
Every match is crucial to a club championship that sees an early split between the top and bottom four clubs, Inner West (54 points) still ahead but with Mascot (49), Easts (49) and Mountain (43) all within striking distance, while just three points separates Campbelltown (31), Enfield (30), Dural (29) and UTS (28) at the other end.
Mountain Majik vs Mascot Vipers
Bring your sunglasses to Hawkesbury Indoor Stadium when ladder-toppers Mountain Majik face Mascot Vipers on Saturday afternoon in one of premier league’s brightest match-ups.
More than 100 goals have been scored in their 10 meetings to date with Majik holding a slender 5-4 (one draw) winning record, yet only three times has the margin been less than three goals to make picking a winner in this fixture virtually impossible.
Mascot’s flown under the radar to be a real force in 2018, but they’ll need to consistently beat the top teams to have any playoff chance, and they’ll need to put the skids on Majik stars Jordan Guerreiro and Jamie Dib who’ve scored 10 goals each against Vipers.
Inner West Magic vs Enfield Allstars
If Futsal wore a Halloween costume it would be the Inner West Magic versus Enfield Allstars derby, for the perfect fright night at Valentine Sports Park this Saturday evening.
Scary is an understatement of how ferocious these two sides are against each other and that’s resulted in a staggering 11 of the last dozen games being decided by two goals or less (includes three draws), and Inner West only slightly ahead 7-6 on the winners board.
This time however they meet in the most desperate of circumstances with Allstars last on the ladder (by goal-difference only, they’re actually just three points from second spot) and Magic without a win in three weeks (and held scoreless by Mountain last weekend).
Trick or treat? You’ll get both at this game!
UTS Northside vs Dural Warriors
Everywhere you look there’s something to make every match fascinating and UTS Northside versus Dural Warriors at PCYC Dee Why on Saturday night is no different.
Perennial champions Dural had beaten Northside seven straight times before UTS sprang a huge 4-2 upset at this venue last December. Revenge or retribution is on the cards either way!
UTS will be glad to be back on home turf after setting a club-low four-straight away losses last week; and they’ve conceded the most goals of any team so far, which is a bigger worry when you consider UTS have three ‘ducks’ in five outings against Warriors.
Eastern Suburbs Hakoah vs Campbelltown Quake
This could actually be the most intriguing round-five encounter as Eastern Suburbs Hakoah clash with Campbelltown Quake at All Sorts Indoor Sports centre on Saturday night.
Both sides seem evenly matched going by early results but, funny enough, it’s only been two years since they last met – in 2016/17 Premier League 2 following Quake’s shock relegation.
Campbelltown rebounded immediately with a club championship win supported strongly by Quake’s runaway open men premier-champions, who racked up a century of goals throughout the season on the back of convincing performances such as, say, shellacking Easts 6-0 (at this venue) and then 12-2.
Fate has a very funny sense of humour indeed.
-By Dan De Nardi
