Soccer, by Josip Zilic
North Geelong Warriors came to their first home match with a pep in their step after a promising start to 2017 against Pascoe Vale where they fought out a 1-1 draw.
Rightfully buoyed in front of their faithful in large numbers who were eagerly waiting to see what sort of season the Warriors will have ahead of them.
Bentleigh Greens their opponents have had a very successful period going all the way to FFA Cup semi-finals and NPL grand final in recent times, last week dispatching Green Gully 3-0 in relatively easy fashion, as always lurking among the goals Matthew Thurtell who is a constant threat up front.
Bentleigh got the match off to a lively start with successive corners trying to utilise set plays to unsettle the Warriors.
The Warriors settled and after some clever combination work through the middle, Bobby Vidanoski delivered a cross goal pass from the left wing via Juso Julardzija that was hit well from 20 metres by Andrew Doig, zipping past Ryan Scott for the lead on 13 minutes.
The ensuing 30 minutes were all North Geelong, gilt edged chances to Michael Anderson and Julardzija were only keeping Bentleigh in the game.
On 37 minutes, Scott was adjudged to have brought down Anderson in the box, Matt Thorne stood up to take the penalty, it was tamely taken and easily kept in play by Scott.
The second half didn’t start brightly for the Warriors, within five minutes Bentleigh had themselves level when Ben Liftin tapped in a loose ball after a Daniel Zilic save.
Soon after, Nathan Long brought down Thurtell in the box giving him the opportunity to take Bentleigh in front and he did so sending Zilic the wrong from the spot kick.
In true Warrior fashion, the battle raged on, North Geelong’s use of direct football was unsettling Bentleigh, despite the best efforts including a near header miss to Ivan Grgic and Vidanoski hitting the bar the scores remained 2-1 to the visitors.
Coach Micky Colina commented that he was happy with the team’s performance but gutted to have let the result slip away.
Their opportunity to atone comes on Monday night against Kingston at Grange Reserve, the other newly promoted side to come off a 3-3 draw against Green Gully.
