By JOSOP ZILIC
SOUTH Melbourne awaits North Geelong on Friday night in an NPL battle of massive proportions.
South Melbourne suffered its first loss of the season last week, going down 2-0 to a resurging Oakleigh. The hosts will have reinforced striking power this week with the signing of Andy Bevin from Seattle Sounders.
South hasn’t been as free-flowing as 2014 and has had a few close calls in recent weeks prior to its Oakleigh loss.
North, although unable to break its losing streak, has been battling hard and dominating matches for lengthy periods but needs to do more in front of goal. Last Saturday’s 1-0 loss at home to Bentleigh was another example of its scoring issue.
The match was highly physical as the yellow card count amounted to eight, five of which were to the visitors.
Bentleigh had the first real chance of the match in the 18th minute when Matthew Thurtell played Christopher Lucas through but Daniel Zilic was on hand in goals to block his effort.
North had its best opportunity with 10 minutes left in the half when Darren Lewis found Michael Anderson in the box. Anderson spun and beat the keeper only to over-hit the shot into the bar.
The second half had just begun when Bentleigh pounced on a turnover in defence. The resulting long ball found Thurtell who caught the North Geelong defence looking for an offside call but the player was in the clear and slotted his shot past the oncoming Zilic.
New Warriors signing Gareth Richards was introduced with 25 minutes left, coming on for Yusuf Yusuf, to provide a target for the home side. He worked hard for his time on the park, even coming close to benefitting from a deep ball to the back post only to get shut down by a well-drilled Bentleigh defence.
Warriors coach Micky Colina noted that sides like Bentliegh needed just a single opening to punish opponents, “and that ends up being the difference”.
“We, on the other hand, need to take a page out their book.”
