Bulli made a return to the winner's circle defeating Port Kembla 4-0 at Wetherall Park. If Port Kembla were ever going to pick up a positive result against Bulli, this would have been the near-perfect circumstances. Bulli had failed to win in their last two games and more to the point, they had failed to score in both of those games. Port Kembla were coming off the back of a strong win against Fernhill and a win for Port Kembla would have taken them to within three points of their opponents today.

With five minutes on the clock, Port Kembla won a free-kick which was central and just outside the box, Cameron Morgan stepped up and struck a dipping effort to force Yuya Kuwada into an acrobatic save at the expense of a corner. Bulli responded within the minute as Tobin Zoomers took aim on the half-volley from outside the box but dragged his effort too far across the goalkeeper.

Three minutes later, Port Kembla could've opened the scoring when a corner swung in met the head of Kyle Senior whose effort cannoned off the crossbar.

On 17 minutes, Bulli opened the scoring when Dylan Lewis went on a powerful run down the right-hand-side before drilling the ball across the six-yard box, putting it on a plate for Mitchell Delturco, who had the simple task of putting the ball past a helpless Bradley Jardine.

Bulli, buoyed with confidence from their opening goal kept pushing for more and just two minutes later, a delicious curled effort from Zoomers came off of the inside of the post much to the relief of Jardine, who could only watch in despair.

Just past the halfway mark of the first half, Bulli had another chance to double their lead when Marcus Beattie found space on the edge of the box, but his shot was a weak one and was no trouble for Jardine.

In the 37th minute the inevitable happened, a crisp one-two between Lewis and Beattie resulted in Lewis slotting the ball past the goalkeeper to double Bulli's advantage. It only got worse for Port Kembla as Senior was dismissed for a second yellow card four minutes later.

Bulli were denied a third goal a minute from halftime when Lewis crossed a ball into Harry Callahan from the right-hand-side who put it past the keeper only to be flagged for offside.

At halftime, it seemed Port Kembla had a mountain too steep to climb, being two goals down and a man down with Bulli needing to respond to their recent bad run of form, it was hard to see any way back into the game for Port Kembla.

The second half started how the first half finished with Bulli putting the ball in the back of the net. On this occasion, Callahan burst down the right-hand-side and his deflected cut-back found Lewis who still had a lot to do, taking it around two defenders and thundering an effort into the roof of the net for his second and Bulli's third.

Just three minutes later, Lewis had his hattrick as a ball over the top cut through the middle of the Port Kembla defence for Lewis to latch onto who stabbed the ball past Jardine.

With Bulli cruising to a win, the tempo of the game started to slow meaning the flow of chances began to slow. In the 65th minute, Callahan once again took advantage of Port Kembla's lacking left-hand-side of defence firing a dangerous ball across the box only for it to be cut out by the Port Kembla defence.

With fifteen minutes left, Port Kembla finally created a chance of their own with Sandy Lowcock attempting to curl the ball into the top corner but got it all wrong and the ball went well wide and over the target.

Late in the game, Bulli worked it nicely down the right-hand-side with the ball arriving at the feet of Blake Hewson whose shot went well over the bar due to a bobble just before he hit the shot, just as well…….

Sandy Lowcock could have had a consolation for Port Kembla a minute later when he hit a shot from a tight angle across the keeper which was somehow saved by Kuwada's foot.

After this, Bulli professionally saw the game out holding possession of the ball not allowing Port Kembla any real time on the ball.

This result sees Bulli back to winning ways and on top of the table with Wollongong Olympic having a game in-hand which they will play against Corrimal on Sunday at Memorial Park. This win will be a relief for Bulli as they were just starting to get into a bit of a rut and needed to go into a difficult game next week against the unbeaten Albion Park with some form.

As for Port Kembla, they will be disappointed with their performance as this was a real opportunity to make up some ground on the teams above, but they never really got going despite their early chances. They will travel to the inform Wollongong United, who play Cringila on Sunday.

 

Saturday 19 May 2018 at Wetherall Park

Port Kembla FC - 0

Bulli FC - 4 (Delturco 17', Lewis 37', 49', 54')

 

Port Kembla FC: Bradley JARDINE, Brooklan FRKOVIC, William MOBBS, Kyle SENIOR, Carlo STELLA, Ben ZUCCO, Cameron MORGAN, Jason PEREZ, Sandy LOWCOCK, Joseph LAVELLE, Makoto ISHIHARA

Substitutes: Justin CARIO (ZUCCO), Naruyuki KATO (LAVELLE), Jack LOMBO (MORGAN), Daniel FARINA, Daniel CARRENO

 

Bulli FC: Yuya KUWADA, Kyle JACKSON, David ABEL, Scott BEST, Marcus BEATTIE, Sam DAVIES, Tobin ZOOMERS, Guy KNIGHT, Harry CALLAHAN, Mitchell DELTURCO, Dylan LEWIS

Substitutes: Ryan EMERTON (KNIGHT), Ben MCDONALD, Nikolas MICESKI (ABEL), Blake HEWSON (D. LEWIS), Jayden LEWIS

 

Referee: Nick RYAN

Assistant Referees: Lottie CABASSI-POWER and Louis DONOVAN

 

Report by Timothy Gibson on Twitter, timg123_

Photo courtesy of Port Kembla FC