Round 8 Review – SELECT Futsal Premier League
SELECT Futsal Premier League round 8 results were storm-affected with postponements for Dural Warriors versus Campbelltown Quake at The Centre, Dural due to a power outage and Enfield Allstars against South Coast Taipans suffered a roof leakage at Morris Iemma Indoor Sports Centre, elsewhere Mountain Majik held leaders Inner West Magic to a 1-1 draw and UTS Northside beat Mascot Vipers 5-3.
Inner West (17 points) head Dural (15), Campbelltown (15), Enfield (13), UTS (12), South Coast (7), Mountaineers (5) and Mascot (3).
Mountain Majik 1 (Jordan Guerreiro) Inner West Magic 1 (own goal)
UTS Northside 5 (Joey Gibbs, Mason Ireland, Grant Lynch, Lucas Rainbird, Reggie Hore-Gibson) Mascot Vipers 3 (Joel Flores 2, Leandro Pinto)
Majik cancels Magic
A late Mountain Majik strike held defending champions Inner West Magic to a 1-1 draw at Blacktown Leisure Centre on Saturday afternoon and leaves the table-toppers prone to a leadership takeover.
The ‘home’ side frustrated Inner West’s all-star line-up all night but it still looked like Magic’s solitary goal would hold up for the win until Mountain man Jordan Guerreiro stepped in with a cracking equaliser two minutes from fulltime.
Inner West’s 12th premier league stalemate equaled Mascot for most-ever, although Dural (11), Boomerangs (10), Campbelltown (9) and Enfield (9) aren’t that far behind. Perhaps it’s more remarkable that only 42 matches (8%) have ended in draws considering 121 have resulted in one-goal victories.
The draw stopped Magic’s four-game winning sequence in the fixture (they’ve won eight times in 10 Majik derbies) and left Inner West just two points ahead of Warriors and Quake, who had their scheduled round-eight encounter postponed due to a power outage at The Centre, Dural.
Despite probably shocked by the result Magic are now five games unbeaten on the road, their second-longest run ever following a nine-match stretch in 2014/15 (Dural hold the record with 11 undefeated away games from 2014 to 2016).
Majik coach Adam Barbera wasn’t able to make the match but hailed the team for snaring a great result. “The whole club is proud of the boys! We were able to hold our own against the best team in the competition,” he said.
“[I’ve heard] Although we weren’t able to keep the ball as well as we wanted, we created more chances and always believed we’d be able to get something out of the game.
“We left it later than we would have liked but the equaliser was more than deserved. Once again it shows the hard work the boys are putting in with [coach] Jamie Amendolia is paying off and it’s a great way to start the second round of the competition.”
Barbera admitted the club was making hay while the sun shined with the indefinite return of Guerreiro. “We’re not sure how long he’s back for,” Barbera said while furiously forking into the barn. “We’d like him to stay for the rest of the year, but also happy for him to go back overseas.”
Northside defeat Mascot
UTS Northside celebrated their 50th premier league outing in style when they held off a spirited Mascot Vipers 5-3 at PCYC Dee Why on Saturday night to move and within a point of the top-four.
Joey Gibbs, Mason Ireland and Grant Lynch goals raced Northside to a 3-0 halftime lead and they were looking the goods before Mascot – playing a 150th premier league match – stormed back into contention with a second-half revival that brought them to back to 3-2.
But UTS found enough juice in the tank to make it to the finish line with Lucas Rainbird and Reggie Hore-Gibson strikes within a minute of each other ensuring a two-goal victory – their fourth straight against Vipers and sixth overall from eight meetings.
It was a good win and a second in a row on ‘home’ turf, a place UTS have been shadowed by inconsistency – only once before have they won twice in a row (back in their debut 2014/15 season, and they had a win and draw together in 2016/17) but they face the competition’s top-three teams in their next three hosting duties to face a tough prospect to make it a club-record three.
Plaudits must go to Northside’s captain courageous Grant Lynch who became just the 30th premier leaguer known to reach the 25-goal mark, a remarkable achievement considering 365 players have registered a goal to their name and almost 100 are stuck on one – only 15% (55 players) have scored more than 15 goals.
To underline Lynch’s feat only he, Boomerangs legend Daniel Fulton (48 goals), Majik duo Jamie Dib (29) and Jordan Guerreiro (27) and Taipans star Matt Mazevski (26) reached the quarter-century not at a ‘Big 4’ club (Warriors, Magic, Quake, Allstars/Rovers), who’ve hogged 57% of the competition’s goals – Corey Biczo (38) and Tuan Cao (28) scored at three different clubs.
Lynch felt for a Mascot side that keeps scaring the pants off their weekly opposition (Vipers have lost seven of eight games and boast a bewilderingly slight goal-difference of minus-seven) and paid credit to the new brigade of faces coming through at UTS.
“It was an interesting game; we dominated the first half and should’ve really had a few more goals to show for it, but in the second half all credit to them as we had to absorb a fair amount of pressure to hang on for the win,” he said.
“We’ve been looking at Mascot results and every game they have been ultra-competitive so we knew we were in for a tough evening and starting off well made all the difference.
“We’re taking it week-by-week at the moment because we’re just trying to get the squad together. The young boys came on near the end and did well and a big credit to Lucas Rainbird who just turned 16 and scored his first senior goal,” Lynch said.
“The club has a few youngsters we’re really excited about and they’ve been showcasing themselves very well this season. We’re very confident of beating anyone when the whole squad turns up and we have a good prep.”
Next week’s games
SELECT Futsal Premier League round-9 Saturday matches has South Coast Taipans host UTS Northside at the University of Wollongong Sports Hub (5.40pm), Campbelltown Quake play Mountain Majik at Minto Indoor Sports Centre (6.10pm), Inner West Magic and Enfield Allstars meet at Blacktown Leisure Centre (4.55pm), and Mascot Vipers face Dural Warriors at All Sorts Indoor Sports Centre (8.50pm).
-By Dan De Nardi
