By JOSIP ZILIC
North Geelong Warriors notched up another win to propel themselves to second place, overcoming a difficult opponent in Springvale White Eagles.
The Warriors now head out for their third road trip in a row to face Box Hill away.
Box Hill have proven unpredictable throughout the 2016 campaign and recent form of two losses and a draw shouldn’t be taken into account as they are a tough unit at the Wembley Park home.
A few weeks back Box Hill was the first team to notch a defeat for the then runaway leader of NPL2 East, Dandenong Thunder, so the calibre of their performance needs to be seriously considered.
Sitting well away from promotion contention you can expect a free-spirited Box Hill ready to entertain its fans and allow their coaching staff a good insight into their talent pool for 2017.
In North Geelong Warriors’ encounter with Springvale White Eagles the visitors took only seven minutes to open the scoring when Michael Anderson who last was provider turned scorer punishing the white Eagles after meeting a precise cross from wing partner Nicholas Jurcic.
Springvale responded quickly though, five minutes later John Pykett latched onto a through ball to net past Daniel Zilic.
The remainder of the first half played out with nervy football where either side could have taken a lead but scores remained unchanged at the interval.
After the break North Geelong wasted no time to regain the lead when in-form striker Kene Eze put the visitors up 2-1 two minutes after the restart.
Having taken the wind out of the Eagles’ wings, the Warriors marched further forward and dominated the match.
Anderson brought up his brace and the Warriors’ third on 60 minutes with some good combination play with Eze before calmly finishing.
With four weeks remaining to close out the automatic promotion, the top three teams are separated by one point now having built a slight buffer on Melbourne City in fourth. Expect to see a very dynamic ladder in the closing weeks as all top three teams face some difficult fixtures to close out the year.
