I didn’t make it down to the Home of the Matildas. Although I like the Monday night fixtures, Bundoora was too far for me. Thankfully though it wasn’t too far for others and the match ended up being fairly well attended. South played Victory Youth and to be honest, I expected a win.
I got home in time to watch kick off and pretty much from the get go was shocked at how South played. Defensive and conservative – allowing Victory Youth to hold the ball and dictate the game. Victory Youth have been promoted and find themselves playing just their second NPL season after their previous stint resulted in instant relegation.
Bleach bottle incident aside – Victory Youth have failed to make waves at the top level, often struggling to retain players who are either taken to the Seniors, poached by other clubs or simply told to move on if they are too old. The fact that they have been able to get back to the NPL I think actually speaks volumes to their program, considering the competitiveness of Victorian NPL. Considering all this, I was expecting a win and was disappointed by the early Victory dominance.
I don’t know why but South has a huge target on their back, and this seems to bring out the best in other teams. Victory looked good, and then they looked cocky, and then South scored from a long throw, as is tradition. Bonada again managed to find the back of the net in a tight space, a dynamic to watch this season.
An absolutely seething Victory Youth managed to embarrass themselves in the aftermath though. Half the squad had a vocal winge and their assistant manager even copping a red card… all for complaining that the thrower had put his foot over the line.
This put Victory back in their shell and South went onto dominate the rest of the half. Truth be told South could have gone into the break a couple of goals up, and deserved a penalty but the referee decided in favour of Victory Youth after a shocking tackle in the box.
The second half started relatively even until about twenty minutes in, when all hell broke loose. Victory Youth equalised at the 76th on the counter after cutting through an wide open South defence. We managed to have four in the back and leave a man unmarked on the run. Communication here simply needs to be better.
But South retook the lead instantly after a perfect from from Mells (again) found Jankovic in the box who’s impressive header was too powerful for the Victory Youth keeper.
The game became frenetic from here on. Victory Youth scored equalised at the 89th when a great finish Minutoli beat Lopez on the near post, and Victory Youth soon after thought they snatched after scoring again.
Four minutes into injury time, again on the counter down the right, Victory Youth crossed it in to find a poorly marked Minutoli header it home on the near post. The team went wild and lost their heads a bit only to be shocked just a few moments later.
In a final twist, just as South fans were leaving the ground South equalise with essentially the last play of the game. Moller headed the ball into the back of the net from a late corner to wrap the game up 3-3.
Was it great to escape with a point? Sure? Does it fill me with confidence for the Preston game in a couple of weeks? Absolutely not. After seemingly choosing to absorb pressure in the first half, our defence looked tired and far too open in the second half. Our goals not only came from set pieces but were generally the result of stronger players dominating the young Victory Youth defence. We won’t have that luxury against other NPL sides this season.
The positives? Mells looked sharp, Bonada looked threatening, Moller scored and the team remained calm throughout the game. It can be said that South is being set up to play the season not the game in this way so maybe we’ll see the team improve over the coming weeks. However, Victory on paper is still one of the weaker squads in the competition and South can’t afford to drop points against St Albans next week or else they set themselves up for an uphill battle already.
ehhere 
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