No joy for Suns as curtain falls on season

Matthew Galea

September 16 2014

Shepparton News

Goulburn Valley Suns succumbed to the might of National Premier Leagues Victoria champion South Melbourne on Sunday.

The Suns went down 4-1 at McEwen Reserve as their inaugural season drew to a close.

It has been a tough initiation into Victoria’s top flight.

Tasked with getting a senior side and seven teams between under-12 and under-20 up and running in a tight period, the Suns did well just to get through the season in all honesty.

If ever there was a club whose blueprint the Suns should follow going forward, it is South Melbourne.

The four-time national champion looked the professional outfit the Suns aspire to be. The match itself was almost decided 15 minutes in.

A stupendous volley from Mathew Theodore from Milos Lujic’s cross got the final game of the season off to a brilliant start for the champions.

Nick Epifano doubled the lead shortly after.

South’s tempo dropped off with a two-goal buffer and the Suns slowly worked their way back into the game.

Joey Hogarty and Riley Hamilton were among the local youngsters to start the game and they grew in stature as the game went on, but could not help the Suns to a goal in the first half.

Craig Carley popped up with a goal early in the second half to inject some interest into the contest, but it did not take South long to restore a two-goal lead.

Naum Sekulovski bought down Lujic in the box and the South striker slotted home the resulting penalty coolly.

Jamie Reed finished the scoring with a beautiful finish.

Suns senior coach David Davkovski said the result was indicative of the difference in professionalism between the clubs and the Suns needed to learn from the first season.

‘‘They train four nights a week and we’ve only been training the one, and it shows you can’t make mistakes at this level,’’ Davkovski.

‘‘The boys have travelled from Melbourne to Shepp and back to Melbourne and it was just too much.

‘‘Preparation is everything and we’ll be stronger next year after the lessons we’ve learned this year, whether that be NPL or NPL1 with all the rumours going around.’’

Football Federation Victoria confirmed last week to The News that the Suns would be going down, but rumours persist they could stay up with as many as four teams set to be introduced to the NPLV between the two tiers next year.