Wollongong Olympic edged out Albion Park two goals to one on Sunday, in a tense and fast-paced encounter.

Both teams in the first half were seeking to control the tempo of the game using precision passing and a running attack. Most of the football was played in each team’s goal area, making for a thrilling opening quarter in which Albion Park seemed to dominate possession while Olympic set the pace.

It was the speed and precision of Olympic that was manifested on the scoreboard first, with Ja Kon Ya seemingly coming out of nowhere to put the home time up 1-nil in just the sixth minute of the game.

Finding themselves behind so early on, Albion Park immediately moved up a gear and made some blistering runs into the Olympic half, making a number of shots on goal, to no avail thanks to Wollongong’s desperation in defence.

With the game moving at a breakneck pace, tension spilled over towards the end of the first half when players from both teams were shown yellow cards for physical infringements. The momentum swung wildly from team to team as they attacked the ball relentlessly.

At this point Wollongong Olympic were using their dominant position on the scoreboard to control the pace of the game, creating space in the mid-field which they used effectively to create chances in the Albion Park goal area.

When the teams came back out onto the field for the second half, Albion Park showed grit and determination to dominate possession in the first ten minutes, while Olympic matched them with intensity in defence.

After stringing together a series of attacks on the Wollongong goal, Albion Park equalised the scoreboard with a precise header from Mitch Delturco, coming off the back of a narrowly –missed bicycle kick from close range.

With the score-line at 1-all, it looked briefly like Albion Park were about to use their dominant possession to take control of the second half. But Wollongong Olympic struck back only minutes later, with Yusuke Ueda finding himself in space and using some brilliant footwork to put the ball past Albion Park’s keeper.

Despite being behind on the scoreboard yet again, Albion Park had to go up another gear to weather a newly confident Olympic attack, who with 20 minutes left in the game, looked to put themselves out of reach of another Albion Park comeback.

The final quarter saw both teams throw everything they had into their attack, with scoring opportunities all over the park, including a number of narrow misses by Olympic from close range, which the Albion Park defenders did well to fend off.

The intensity that began in the first five minutes continued right up until the final five, with Albion Park desperate to make one of their many opportunities stick.

But it wasn’t to be, with the score-line resting at 2-1 at the final whistle, thanks to the clinical defence from Wollongong Olympic, in the face of a quick and aggressive Albion Park.

Albion Park coach Jeff Allport, was circumspect about the loss, saying that ‘the performance of both teams was promising, and should have good seasons going forward… We’re just trying to get a settled pattern of play, we’ve got a couple of guys trialling with us at the moment, so over the next to r three weeks we need to finalise those two spots and move forward’.

 

Wollongong Olympic – 2 (Ya, Ueda)

Albion Park – 1 (Delturco)

 

Sunday 28^th February 2016

North Wollongong PCYC

 

Referee: Bobby Mazevski

Assistants: Greg Reid and Angela Gray

 

Wollongong Olympic: Tatsubayashi, Lloyd, Keating, Duczyask, Ya, Rodriguez, Fordham, Gordon, Lee, Ueda, Sutcliffe (Hazebrook, Gamble, Hampton, Mangers, Maurikis

Albion Park: Ahling, N. Delturco, Wilson, Every, Nathaniel, Paterson, M. Delturco, Fielding, Balmforth, Ovando, McRae (Jones, Domine, Dafkotski, Caric, Djukic)

Story by Oliver Chaseling