The message from Bentleigh Greens coach John Anastasiadis to his players, despite his team’s 3-1 win in their season opening match, is that they’ve got to keep improving.
As far as contests go, Thursday evening’s NPL 1 season opener at Kingston Heath between reigning NPL 1 champions Bentleigh Greens and newly promoted Dandenong Thunder was an uneven contest.
Although the final scoreline 3-1 in the Greens’ favour suggested a comfortable win, all of Bentleigh’s goals came after the visitors were reduced to 10 players in the 15th minute, when keeper Fraser MacLaren was red-carded for handballing outside the box, to prevent a goalscoring opportunity.
Up until then, the Greens trailed to an early Zois Galanopoulos goal, and could’ve easily been two goals down were it not for Thunder centre-half Hamish Millar missing an open goal with a header from close range.
Following MacLaren’s dismissal, the Greens sought to exploit their numerical advantage by dominating possession, and within 15 minutes they had overturned the deficit with two goals, the first a direct free kick converted by midfielder Jason Hicks, and the second a header from close range from Matt Thurtell after a cross from Blake Thompson.
In the second half, the Greens continued to dominate possession and created several good chances particularly to Dimi Hatzimouratis.
The visitors tried to keep the game as compact as possible and prevent the Greens from extending the lead, in the hope of pinching an equaliser late in the game. They did have a couple of chances through Brandon Barnes and Samuel Catherine but were unable to capitalise.
In the end, the weight of numbers was too much for Thunder and a Chris Lucas cross found the head of Hatzimouratis for a final sealer to the Greens.
After the match, Bentleigh Greens coach John Anastasiadis commented, “Obviously we had a bit of luck when their keeper was sent off. They made it hard for us and until that third goal went in, our hearts were in our mouths at times. Credit to Dandenong. They really fought hard. There’s no doubt we’ve got a lot of work to do still, but we’ll take the three points.”
Anastasiadis lamented the turnover in midfield that led to the Greens conceding an early goal.
“I don’t know what’s happened this year, but we seem to be making mistakes and getting punished for it. We’ve got to really make sure we eliminate as many mistakes as possible. There are a lot of players there that have come to the club. We’ve got seven new players. So they’re learning the Bentleigh way and it’s not easy. At the end of the game, I told them ‘you’ve got to keep improving. That’s the main thing, as long as you keep improving, you’ll get better and the results will come.'”
Of next week’s visit to Oakleigh, Anastasiadis said, “Oakleigh are one of the favourites this year. There’s no doubt they’ve got a fantastic squad and it’s going to be a very tough game for us. We’ve got to be at our best and try and get a positive result.”