By JOSIP ZILIC
North Geelong faces its toughest assignment yet on Saturday when it visits runaway National Premier League leader Avondale Heights.
Avondale went back to its winning ways last week with a 1-0 win against Richmond courtesy of an Oleksiy Khrapko goal.
The win left Avondale 11 points clear on top of the competition.
North Geelong will enter the contest after a 2-1 win against Sunshine.
The match opened lackadaisically, with little fluidity or purpose as both sides made turnovers at crucial stages.
North Geelong took the lead in the 28th minute after Robbie Zadworny whipped in a corner, which Michael Grgic headed home.
At the break Micky Colina introduced Michael Anderson in place of Nikola Jurkovic as he sought to inject additional pace to attack a deep-lying Sunshine defence.
Five minutes later North Geelong capitalised on a turnover, going 2-0 up when Mark Paleka rocketed a long-range effort into the top right corner.
The Warriors then settled as Vito Cichello distributed the ball to his forwards with timing and placement. However, the forwards seemed lacking in urgency, wasting several opportunities.
On 60 minutes Sunshine brought on forward Boz Lojanica who nearly had the goal his team needed five minutes later when he drove a shot past Daniel Zilic to hit the side netting.
Another five minutes of sustained Sunshine pressure was rewarded when a free kick wide of the penalty area was whipped into the box for Tom Reilly to head hard past Zilic.
The ensuing 20 minutes were end-to-end as both teams went for another goal.
North Geelong was again too casual in front of goal, giving defenders enough time to close them down, while Sunshine was too desperate and rushed its chances.
Colina expressed discontent after the match.
“We did just enough to get over the line. Credit to George Cross, they battled hard but we need to seriously pick our game up.”
