South Melbourne continued its unbeaten start to 2010 after two second-half goals saw the visitors overcome Dandenong Thunder at George Andrews Reserve on Saturday night in a dominant display.
Marinos Gasparis and Gianni De Nittis were South’s goal scorers while last week’s man of the match Peter Zois, got a deserved clean sheet for the Blues.
Despite suffering minor knocks last week against Green Gully, Carl Recchia, Gasparis and James Stefanou retained their starting positions, while the VPL’s leading goal scorer Fernando De Moraes was ruled out of the starting line-up after sustained an injury at training.
Mild conditions greeted both sides as the match commenced, with South settling the quicker of the two.
Carl Recchia and Daniel Vasilevski wasted little time in establishing themselves as the chief ball winners, linking up with Sam Torrens and Sebastian Petrovic on the left and right wings respectively.
De Nittis, Torrens and Vasilevski all had early efforts but the Thunder’s custodian, Stuart Webster, was not genuinely tested.
The Albert Park club’s injury list grew midway through the half when centre back Steve O’Dor hobbled off with a hamstring injury.
Shortly after, the Thunder almost took the lead when a shot from Joey Di Iorio hit the side netting at the near post instead of the back of the net.
In the second half, South continued to enjoy the lion’s share of possession.
Recchia and Vasilevski continued to win the midfield battle, whilst captain Rama Tavsancioglu did an excellent job of keeping Hamlet Armenian quiet on the right side.
The persistence finally paid off in the 54th minute when a stinging Recchia shot could only be parried by Webster into the path of Gasparis, who scored at the near post to open the scoring as well as register his first goal for South Melbourne FC.
The goal suddenly stung the home side into action, with Dandenong having their best period of possession for the match in the fifteen minutes following the goal.
In that time the Thunder was extremely unfortunate not to equalise, firstly with an unmarked Di Iorio putting his header wide of Peter Zois’ goal before Scott Bulloch put his half-volley over the bar a minute later.
Despite these scares, South managed to comfortably defend its lead. De Moraes and Sasha Vranesivic both came on to support Gianni De Nittis up front, as Vasilevski and Torrens went off.
De Moraes supplied De Nittis with a through-ball but Webster was there to deny South yet again and keep the score unchanged at 0-1.
De Nittis had done an excellent job up forward all night and he was finally rewarded with his first goal of 2010 deep into injury time.
A swift counter-attack ended with Vranesivic cutting the ball back across goals for De Nittis to tap in at the far post to secure South’s second win in succession as well as the club’s first clean sheet of the season.
After the Easter break, South Melbourne FC hosts Heidelberg United in the final match at Bob Jane Stadium before the multi-million dollar renovations on the ground commence.
With the two sides being arch rivals for over 50 years, the match promises to be an exciting contest in front of a large crowd. Kick-off is at 3pm on Sunday April 11.
South moves into the top four for the first time in 2010, with two wins and three draws in the opening five rounds.
Injury riddled Northcote stuns flat Greens
Elsewhere, it was the battle of the newly promoted Premier league teams on Saturday afternoon with Northcote City playing host to Bentleigh Greens.
The last time these two teams met Northcote embarrassed the Greens in front of their home crowd almost costing them promotion.
With the Greens coming into this game undefeated and Northcote coming off there first win of the season both teams were keen to secure all three points.
Unfortunately for the Greens it was the injury riddled Northcote who came away with all the points, winning 2-0 in front of a home crowd of 400 people and leaving the Greens stunned.
Though the Greens were the most technically proficient team of the first half, it was Northcote that drew first blood after a crucial error by the Green defence allowing Northcote striker Jonothan Volgaris to streak ahead and score the first goal of the match.
This goal proved to be a game changer with the Greens appearing flat and unnerved thereafter.
Even some important substitutions in the second half couldn’t save the Greens with Northcote scoring again on the counter attack in the 87th minute when Northcote striker Bradley Norton snuck passed the Greens defence.
The match gave much needed hope to the relatively young Northcote side and left the Greens with some much needed soul searching.
Northcote travel to Sunshine Georgies on Sunday the 11th April (kickoff at 7pm) while the Greens play host to Greens Gully on Friday the 9th April (kickoff 8:30pm).