North Geelong Warriors FC was unable to continue its undefeated home record on Saturday afternoon, going down by two goals to one in Round 14 of the NPL Victoria 2 season to St Albans Saints SC.
A late penalty conversion from Matthew Townley was not enough to see the Warriors take anything from the game as goals from former North Geelong vice-captain Michael Grgić and St Albans winger Adrian Baressi ensured all three points went back to Churchill Reserve.
Michael Anderson and Matthew Thorne were both included in the starting eleven and were the only changes from the line-up that drew with Ballarat Red Devils seven days prior, Anderson returning from Europe and Thorne from suspension.
The opening minutes of the game showed little to separate the two sides, with the game growing increasingly physical as the match wore on.
The stalemate was broken 23 minutes in, when former Warrior Michael Grgić drove a shot into the roof of the net after a corner kick was poorly dealt with by the North Geelong defense. Out of respect for his former side, it was a subdued celebration by Grgić.
The two sides went in at the break with the travelling Dinamo one goal to the good.
In the second half, North Geelong came out with a far more positive approach and had two big chances to level the scoring.
The first fell to Darren Lewis, who met a Rudi Saglam delivery inside the six yard box but failed to direct his header on target and reward himself with a birthday goal.
The next chance came to returnee Anderson, whose shot on the turn inside the penalty area didn’t have enough power to beat St Albans custodian Alex Baird.
The Saints made North pay for their profligacy just minutes later when Adrian Baressi was played through behind the last line of North Geelong defense and converting by sending a shot past Daniel Žilić into the bottom left hand corner of the net.
The physicality of the game wore on and in an interesting decision by the referee, a tussle between the already booked Ivan Skorich and Matthew Thorne, where the former seemed to put his hands on Thorne’s throat, saw St Albans given the free kick and a booking was shown in the way of the North Geelong man.
Skorich was immediately substituted by Dinamo head coach Željko Kuzman and Barry Devlin entered in the striker’s place.
In the 82nd minute, Thorne found Nicholas Jurčić with a brilliant through ball and the winger rounded Baird only to then be brought down by the ‘keeper.
Baird was subsequently shown his marching orders for the last man tackle and Dillon Ibrahim came on to face the penalty.
As expected, Townley stepped up to take the penalty and, just as in Round 1 against the same opposition, converted with aplomb.
In the closing moments on the game, North Geelong threw everything at their opposition in a bid to rescue a late draw, but the Dinamo defensive unit held out and handed the Warriors their first defeat since Round 4.
The loss sees North Geelong forfeit top-place to the in-form Melbourne City, who beat Bendigo City 3-1 on the same day.
The top six sides in NPL2 West are separated by just four points in what is a riveting development in the race for automatic promotion.
In the U20s encounter, Mick Švaljek’s troops moved back up to third place with an emphatic 5-2 win. Alessandro Stefano, Ni Reh and Jak Banks scored first half goals before Seb Hessmann and James Hidić added further strikes in a solid, complete performance by our young troops.
North Geelong’s next clash is on Wednesday evening, when it takes on reigning league premier’s South Melbourne FC in Round 6 of the FFA Cup at JL Murphy Reserve in Port Melbourne at 7.30pm.
MATCH DETAILS: North Geelong Warriors FC 1 (Townley) defeated by St Albans Saints SC 2 (Grgić, Baressi) at Elcho Park (HT: 0-1)
North Geelong: Daniel Zilic; Nathan Long, Darren Lewis, Matthew Townley, Josh Pugh; Michael Simms, Vito Cichello; Nicholas Jurcic, Matthew Thorne, Rudi Saglam (Ante Kozul); Michael Anderson (Anthony Banovac).
St Albans: Alex Baird; Ben Shaper (Nana Yaw), George Tsiakalakis, Ryan McGuffie, Joey Monek; Michael Grgic, Nick Sarbin, Andrew Milicevic (Dillon Ibrahim), Josh Knight, Ivan Skorich (Barry Devlin), Adrian Baressi.
