Raiders managed to ensure their survival on the final day of the PlayStation 4 National Premier League South Australia, despite a 3-1 loss to Adelaide City.

Lewis Farquhar opened the scoring for the visitors five minutes in after he was played through by Marco Mittiga, beating his defender for pace and easily finishing around the on-rushing Deale Chamberlain.

Nicholas Bucco doubled the visitors lead from the spot with an expertly placed penalty just out of Chamberlains reach. The finishing touches were put on six minutes later with Bucco again sent to the penalty spot.

Raiders came out a totally different side in the second half with attacking trio Mamadi Kamara, Elvis Kamsoba and Herman Fombason a constant threat down the wings, while Jordan O’Doherty pulled the strings in a deep lying role.

City’s back four stood firm despite Raiders pressure, but the home side got their reward in injury time with Christos Pounendis unleashing a rocket into the top corner from distance.

Raiders Captain Jackson Stephens it was a weird feeling for the side post game with Premier League survival secured off the back of an average performance.

“That was the weirdest thing of all, we obviously had a very average game and it was a poor result but the bigger picture is, a club like Raiders we all believe deserves to stay in the top league.

“We feel like we’ve been fairly hard done by this year with some of the results where we’ve felt we deserved at least a point haven’t gone our way.

“We felt like we deserved more out of the season but at the end of the day we’re just happy that we’ve lived to fight another day and we’ll be back next year hopefully bigger, better and stronger.”

Stephens said the side would now re-asses in preparation for next year.

“Now we re-asses, recruit players, talk to the players we have as well about next season and just try and form a strong base for next year.

“It looks like it’s going to be another really competitive year, I mean this year there was really nothing between the top side and teams like us; anyone could get results and I think it’s going to be like that again next year, so it’s all about recruiting.”

Adelaide City’s goal scorer Nic Bucco said the side was in a good frame of mind heading into a huge finals encounter against Croydon Kings.

“We’re very confident, we were only a couple of minutes away from a third clean sheet in a row, I think we just switched off because we knew the game was over.

“But we are really, really confident on the back of three wins on the trot with two of those against finals opposition, but we know it’s going to be a tough game on Saturday night.”

Bucco said the side’s finals experience would be key in a successful campaign.

“We’re an experienced team, we know finals football and we know how similar finals football is to cup football and that’s one of our strengths.

“We know fully what to expect and what we have to do to get a result, everything is cut throat and do or die.”
Bucco expects this Saturday night’s encounter against current Champions Croydon Kings to be highly entertaining.
“I’m expecting similar to what’s been on show the last two times we’ve played them.

“Our two recent defeats against them have both been very similar, we’ve had chances early and didn’t take them, Croydon hit us on the break, took the lead and then we were chasing the game.

“I know that we’ll be looking at making a good start, ensuring that we’re clinical on Saturday; the first goal is very important and if we can get that, I think we’ll be on the right track to get a good result.”

Article by Brendan Simpkins