By Andrew Bishara (@_andrewbishara)

A masterclass performance by Kenny Athiu saw Box Hill United romp to a 4-1 win over Richmond SC at Kevin Bartlett Reserve on Sunday afternoon.

Athiu was instrumental for United, scoring the opening goal before setting up Rinok Muriqi, Samuel Catherine and Alex Schroen as the visitors cancelled out Tom Cahill’s lone penalty.

The game had barely settled down before Athiu struck the opener in the fourth minute.

The striker found himself one-on-one with Richmond ‘keeper Matt Hrastov thanks to a slick through ball and he needed no invitation to coolly dispatch the goal.

But the lead didn’t last long as Richmond equalised in the ninth minute thanks to a Tom Cahill penalty.

The striker burst through the United box and when turning a pack of defenders was brought down. The referee had no hesitation awarding the penalty and Cahill made no mistake from the spot to tie the game.

Recapturing its momentum, Richmond began to apply pressure, but couldn’t find the break through as United held its nerves.

It was then Athiu who stepped up to break the game open again.

Gathering a long ball from deep, the striker found himself on the edge of the Richmond box and lobbed the ball to Muriqi, who was completely alone in the box.

Controlling it first time, Muriqi smashed the volley to put the visitors back in the lead.

United had another chance to extend its lead minutes later when George Howats glided through the Richmond defence, but scuffled his shot wide of the post.

If the home fans were looking for their team to bounce back in the second half, their hopes were quickly dashed by a splendid United team goal.

From within his own half Nick Kokolakis launched a long ball to the running Athiu who broke the offside trap.

Collecting the ball on the run and knowing defenders would catch him, the striker turned his back on goal and lay off the ball to the oncoming Catherine, who smashed it in first time.

Richmond was clearly rattled after that and lost control of the game as Box Hill dominated possession.

The game was effectively over in the 65th minute when Athiu once again outmuscled his marker, ran into the box and passed it off to Schroen, who with all the time in the world buried the ball into the back of the net.    

Box Hill coach Arthur Georgiou said while the result was the perfect start to the season, the performance needed improvement.

“We’re a performance-based team and the performance overall was okay,” Georgiou said.

“We have a very unique style we like to play. We like to play it out from the back. To Richmond’s credit they stopped us from doing that.

“That little bit of restructure [at half time] allowed us to do that.”

When asked about Athiu’s man-of-the-match performance, Georgiou called him an “excitement machine”.

“We don’t tell Kenny what to do and stuff because players of that nature, they don’t need to be coached,” he said.

The Richmond camp was unavailable for comment.

MATCH DETAILS

FT: Richmond 1 (Cahill 9’ pen.) lost to Box Hill United 4 (Athiu 4’, Muriqi 25’, Catherine 51’, Schroen 65’)

Richmond SC: 1.Matt HRASTOV [GK], 3.Daniel MILBORROW, 15.James STEFANOV, 2.Rylan SADLER, 4.George TSIAKALAKIS, 6.David KUSTURA ( 45’ 10.Mitchell BEAMISH), 7.Hamlet ARMENIAN (57’ 13.Ryan Supple), 8.Josh KNIGHT, 5.Tim PURCELL (11.Fabian STRANGES), 14.Liam FLYNN, 9.Tom Cahill

Unused subs: 20. Tom BANFIELD, 12. Sam SHEPPARD.

Yellow Cards: 12’ MILBORROW, 20’ KNIGHT

Red Cards: Nil

Box Hill United: 35. Alexander PAVLIDIS [GK], 12.Adrian DELMONDO, 23.Josh VALADON, 8.Sam CATHERINE, 4.Chris IRWIN (70’ 18. Damien PETERS), 3.Matt COLLIER, 10.Rinok MURIQI (84’ 16. Christian LARS) 29. George HOWATS (60’ 5.Alex SCHROEN), 11.Matt WATERS, 14.Kenny ATHIU, 22.Nick KOKOLAKIS

Unused subs: 1.Christian PAVLDIS, 33. Ben OSEI-SAFO

Yellow Cards: 20’ ATHIU

Red Cards: Nil