Saturday, 1 May 2010
Narrabundah FC 3
Canberra Olympic 3
Scoring
1 – 0 W. Adams 5′
2 – 0 D. Park 11′
2 – 1 A. Gift 17′
3 – 1 J. Krithinakis 24′
3 – 2 A. Nuthergift 31′
3 – 3 U. Haftubeekiddingme 39′
It was another brilliant Canberra Autumn day for Narrabundah’s first home game of the season, but disappointingly the home side slumped to a draw with an Olympic side that had already been on the end of a couple of hidings this season.
It all started so well with Narrabundah dominating the early exchanges and storming into a 2 – 0 lead with goals from Adams and Park, whilst several more glorious opportunities went begging. Olympic appeared to have no answer for a dominant Reds midfield and the height of Cummings was constantly causing problems. But then everything started to turn.
First Olympic were gifted a way back into the match when a hopeful long ball/clearance was somehow missed by everyone, allowing the only half decent player for Olympic to stroll through and slot home. Impressive debutant Adams was then forced from the pitch with injury, soon to be followed by Linfoot. Narrabundah did manage to extend their lead once more through Krithinakis, but Olympic had now found their plan of attack for the rest of the match, long balls.
Unfortunately, Narrabundah never looked comfortable dealing with the threat and soon Olympic had pulled another back when a bouncing ball wasn’t dealt with, allowing the Olympic striker to once again stroll in and chip the stranded Ruiz in goals. Olympic soon had their equaliser after a midfielder slalomed through a static Narrabundah defense before finishing neatly. With Olympic now bypassing the Narrabundah midfield and causing havoc at the back, the game quickly lost and pretense of being a football match and in truth, Narrabundah were fortunate to get to half time still on level pegging
After a somewhat intense half time talk, Narrabundah came out a firing but although dealing with the threat at the back better than in the first half, still never looked truly comfortable and Olympic continued to carve out good chances. More disappointingly though, Narrabundah seemed to lose all impetus going forward and were rarely threatening the Olympic goals, the best efforts being shots from distance. Despite the performance, Narrabundah had a glorious chance to snatch the victory when in the last 30 seconds, Exposito found himself with the ball at his feet 10 yards out, but his shot drifted fractionally wide with the keeper well beaten.
In truth, it would have been an undeserved victory for Narrabundah who turned out what has to be considered their most disappointing performance of the season to date. A season that started so brightly with a 10 man victory is now in danger of stagnating – a situation that can only be avoided through commitment and effort on the part of all the players and coaches.