On Saturday, Helensburgh scraped through in the final minutes of their home game against Kiama, to take the match 2-1.

In what was a back-and-forth affair, both teams found themselves in dominant positions throughout the game, but were unable to fully seize their opportunities until Helensburgh found the deciding goal with five minutes left in the game.

From the opening minutes, Helensburgh showed composure in their attacking shape, while Kiama used pace in the unstructured play to create their attacking opportunities.

Helensburgh’s mid-fielders showed great skill in their footwork and passing, but in the initial stages were unable to find adequate space in Kiama’s goal area, thanks to Kiama’s solid defence.

Helensburgh created a number of opportunities to score, and held the advantage for most of the first half, but Kiama still looked dangerous in being able to generate chances from their counter-attacking pace.

Helensburgh made their first goal off the back of some intelligent forward patterns, when Andrew Paine, under pressure, found the net from a header on 21 minutes.

After their first goal, Helensburgh lacked the intensity that had led to it, and allowed Kiama’s forwards back into the game, who were able to string together a series of attacking runs of their own, and found the equaliser on 38 minutes when Dean Land put it neatly past Helensburgh’s keeper.

In the opening minutes of the second half, Helensburgh looked to repeat the strategy they’d used in the first, and again found that a lack of mid-field pressure from Kiama allowed them to establish some effective attacking runs.

But Kiama were still quick to seize their opportunities when they could find them, and midway through the second produced a flurry of chances that almost forced Helensburgh into putting through an own-goal.

As it was in the first half, so it was in the second with Helensburgh losing their intensity on the ball and allowing themselves to be out-stripped by the pace and power of Kiama’s attack.

Going into the final twenty minutes, Kiama looked dangerous and were looking like they would put through the deciding goal at any moment, despite the desperate defence from Helensburgh.

But it was Helensburgh who would make the breakthrough, after a corner kick in the 86^th minute allowed them the brief opportunity to get close enough to the Kiama goal to allow the towering Mitch Buchanan, with some solid support, to drive it through a packed penalty area only to find Chris Russell on the far post to deflect it in.

Kiama mounted a last-ditch attack to equalise the score, but Helensburgh’s defence again held them back to take the game at 2-1 in front of a loving home crowd.

 

Round 3, District 1^st Grade

9/4/16 – Rex Jackson Oval

 

Helensburgh Thistle – 2 (Andrew Paine, Chris Russell)

Kiama Quarriers – 1 (Dean Land)

 

Helensburgh– Gilbert, Rowley, Buchanan, Kendrigan, Garcia, Paine, Wyatt, N. Mucci, McCann, J.Mucci, Van Zol (Keep, Russell, Watts, Groom)

Kiama- McDonald, Gillespie, Hill, Rowe, Land, Wade, Lester, Buzinski, Swinton, Christodozou, Annen (Berringer, Marks, Gulloni, Spence, Bittberlin)

Referee: Ryan O’Sullivan
Assistant Referee: Nick Ryan and Daniel Lucas

Report by Oliver Chaseling
Photo by Pedro Garcia (Library archive)