By Josip Zilic
“Warriors in the truest sense”, are the words Micky Colina chose to describe his charges as North Geelong took the fight up to their much-fancied opponent Hume City in last weekend’s 1-1 draw at home.
With the half way mark of the season here, the Warriors now set their sights for the reverse fixtures, starting with Pascoe Vale at home this Saturday.
Pascoe are experiencing a slump in form, picking up only two points in the last four weeks, seeing nine goals hit the back of their net in that time, however they are a quality side and have the capacity to turn it around, especially with the ever present Davey Van’t Schip at their expense.
North Geelong has had a better run of form of late collecting four four points from their last four encounters, however their last battle didn’t’ start in the best of fashion when for the seventh week in a row they went down inside the opening 15 minutes.
After a half-hearted clearance, Bryan Bran sent the ball straight back into the penalty area to beat the advancing defenders who were busily looking for an off side call, but Jayden Prasad was on and made no mistake in controlling the ball easily rounding Stevanja to notch up the lead.
North Geelong responded with a lengthy dominant period, with Vito Cichello working hard in midfield to create turnovers into attack.
On 37 minutes, their chance came when Andrew Doig delivered a defence splitting pass to the oncoming Nicholas Jurcic who drilled the ball past the advancing Michael Weier.
In the second half, the Warriors kept up their fight with a series of repelling attacks, continuing to create difficult moments for their opponents, turning into attack. Unfortunately, despite several opportunities the next goal would not come with the quality of finishing letting the home side down.
With the lift in tempo and sustained periods of possession, the Warriors seem to have their drive again, the question is: “Will they put Pascoe to the sword for the first win of the year?”
