Second-half revival

Matthew Galea

September 8 2014

Shepparton News

When Goulburn Valley Suns found themselves 5-0 down at half-time of their National Premier Leagues Victoria fixture against Dandenong Thunder, they had two choices.

They could capitulate further, or they could take the game back to the Thunder.

They chose the latter.

The Suns lost 6-3 in the end, but they ensured even if they could not take any points back to Shepparton, they could at least take some pride.

Senior coach David Davkovski described the second-half transformation as the best 45 minutes of soccer he had ever been involved in.

If any one player epitomi sed that transformation, it was 16-year-old Riley Hamilton.

‘‘I witnessed a boy become a man,’’ Davkovski said in relation to the youngsters performance.

Hamilton started at right-back and had an absolute nightmare.

Recognising Hamilton’s age and relative lack of experience, Dandenong sent most of its attacks down their left side, doubling up on the Shepparton local.

Three of Thunder’s five first-half goals came from Hamilton’s flank.

However, by the end of the game Simon Colosimo and Naum Sekulovski — who have 429 Australian top-flight games between them — were full of praise for Hamilton, according to Davkovski.

Davkovski moved Hamilton into the middle of the park after half-time, with Frankie Lagana taking the right-back role and the 16-year-old turned the game on its head.

Hamilton went from being the bullied to the bully and alongside Daniel Chaabani and Bryan Vanega imposed the Suns’ will on the contest.

He even capped the performance with a goal — his first senior goal for the Suns.

‘‘Simon (Colosimo) said to me during the second half: ‘don’t make any changes, we got us into this mess and we’ll fix it’,’’ Davkovski said.

‘‘(Thunder) has players’ trialling for Melbourne Victory, so they’re a good team and it was a big effort to win the second half.’’

Craig Carley scored the Suns’ other two goals with two well-taken, poachers’ efforts, while Phil Petrovski was immense in goal at the other end despite conceding six.

‘‘We would have been 9-0 down at half-time if it wasn’t for him,’’ Davkovski said.

‘‘No-one covered for Riley and we were just sitting way too high. Everyone was flat,’’ Davkovski said. ‘‘But we were so good in the second half. It was a reminder how good we can be.’’