Southern United’s Premier League Men’s and Women’s teams travelled to Essendon to take on the Bombers on Saturday as part of Hockey Victoria’s Women’s Round. Essendon’s pitch is notoriously bad and considerably slower than any other in the league, this combined with Essendon’s fighting spirit and poor start to the year, meant it was always going to be a hard day at the office for the improving Southern teams.
The women’s game was first up and although Southern went into the game ahead of Essendon on the ladder it was always going to be a tough battle. Essendon were beaten semi finalists last year and after a disappointing start to the year they were always going to give as good as they got. Southern were without highly influential midfielder Megan Hull who was back in New Zealand for her university graduation and talented youngster Nicole Amiet through injury.
The match started at a fast pace with both teams playing direct and looking to gain ascendency early, both teams looked dangerous on the counter attack.
It was Essendon who managed to break the deadlock with a goal to Georgia Mccormick in the 26th minute. Southern had the run of the play after that until half time and would have felt they were well in truly in the contest and creating enough chances to win.
Coach Matt L’Huillier felt his team hadn’t played to their potential but was still in the match “we had a poor first half but we’re still in contact only being 1 nil down, we spoke about our press, being more creative when we were out letting and making sure each team member had a positive impact on the game”.
The second half saw Southern with a lot of the ball and in and around the attacking circle. Australian U16 athlete Amy Lawton was instrumental in a lot of the creative pieces of play and constantly bedazzles spectators with her control and ability to stand out in the best league in the state at her age.
Southern continued to push forward all the way through the second half and eventually earnt a penalty stroke, unfortunately the stroke went wide but it didn’t look to dishearten the team. In the 62nd minute Australian Futures star Olivia Downes scored her 1st goal of the year when she made a brilliant solo run along the baseline weaving through would be Essendon defenders. The next 8 minutes were evenly contested but Essendon were awarded a fortuitous penalty corner with only two minutes to go and managed to score from a variation to take the lead.
Try as they may the Southern Women could score another equaliser and will be disappointed not to have taken at least a point from the game.
Players to impress the WPL coaching group were:
“Kirsty Gardiner – playing very well and showing real maturity with her leadership of the defence, a stand out for a couple of weeks now
Liv Carruthers – really starting to show how dangerous and creative she can be with the ball
Tamsin Nelson – she’s the driving force behind the press with her hard running and knowledge
Liv Downes – Staring to look dangerous and find some really good form”
The Premier League Men were on straight after the women, the men hadn’t won at Essendon in four years and were coming off back to back losses so were well aware of the difficulty of the task at hand.
Southern looked dangerous early on with the ball flowing around the pitch and the strikers getting plenty of the ball. Michael Pearce and Todd Mchardy were prominent in the attacking third early on were getting great service from the midfielders and defenders. In the 8th minute mark Southern forced their second corner of the match and captain Jamie Coombes made no mistake, firing the ball into the bottom right corner against.
Some poor discipline from Southern saw them down to 10 men and Essendon capitalised earning and scoring a penalty corner of their own.
Southern controlled the match for the next 10 minutes, Matt Brougham and Brad Marais standing out by setting up good attacks and defending strongly. In the 21st minute, and after a sustained period of attack in Essendon’s half, a hard ball was cracked in and Nathan Ephraums jumped in front and deflected it past the outstretched keeper. Two minutes later Ephraums was at it again, after beating a couple of players on the baseline he tucked a sneaky shot past the keeper to take the United boys to a 3-1 lead.
At this point Southern could have run away with the game and were continuing to control the game and create chances. However, late in the first half a mistake in deep defense saw Essendon run uncontested into the attacking circle and smash the ball past goal keeper Edward Arnold.
The second half was a scrappy affair with both teams looking to condense the field and give no quarters. Strong defending by Jamie Coombes, Josh Ephraums and Joey Kenny saw Essendon were get frustrated with their inability to penetrate, they threw everything but the kitchen sink at the United men but couldn’t score the equaliser. Although neither team had any out and out chances Southern were unlucky not to win several penalty corners for blatant infringements in the attacking circle. Nathan Ephraums made several damaging runs and seemed to be targeted by the Essendon defenders who were somewhat over enthusiastic with their tackling. United managed the game well in the last 10 minutes and did enough to take the points.
Josh Ephraums was awarded the medal for player of the match by the umpires.
The result means the Southern men are in 3rd equal after 7 rounds and will be hoping to maintain that position over the next few weeks.
Both teams play Altona at their Farm Road home in Cheltenham this week. The women kick off proceedings at 2pm, followed by the men at 3.30pm.
