By Josip Zilic
After a gut-wrenching loss to league leaders Avondale in the final seconds of the match last Saturday, North Geelong coach Micky Colina reinforced that there was still plenty on offer for his charges to collect the points required to survive in NPL1 for 2017.
The challenges don’t get any easier though, this Saturday night at Olympic Village the Warriors take on Heidelberg, which had a come-from-behind 3-2 win against Green Gully, with danger men Kenny Athiu and former A-League prodigy Adrian Zahra among the scorers.
In their battle against top-of-the-table Avondale the Warriors were steadfast in the opening stanza with little on offer for either side to open the scoring.
The best opportunity went to Juso Julardzija on 30 minutes when he quickly took the option to push the ball wide of the area instead of having a crack himself from just outside the box.
Avondale don’t allow for too much room in their defence and it’s no wonder they have only three goals so far this season, however when the opportunities arise they need to be taken and Bobby Vidanoski was guilty of spurning two of them in the second half after some good combination work through the middle.
Avondale took the lead on 60 minutes though, Daniel Zilic upended Yitay Towns in the area and former Melbourne City player Jonatan Germano dispatched the spot kick dutifully.
Colina went about making substitutions and changing formation, which suited the Warriors more – with substitutions Kene Eze and Nicholas Jurcic offering more drive and creating some unsettling moments for Avondale.
As the match was drawing to an end with the fourth official indicating three extra minutes, North won a free kick on the edge of the box, Matt Thorne stepped up and curled a low hard drive into the bottom of the net to level proceedings and what most thought was a rescue of a point.
Unfortunately for the Warriors it wasn’t to be, Avondale won a throw-in deep into their forward third and a flick on and a slight glancing header went unchallenged for Kamal Ibrahim to register the winner and the three points for the visitors, deflating the North Geelong players, coaches and fans alike.
