Saturday, 19 June 2010
Canberra Olympic 0
Narrabundah FC 6
Scoring
0 –1 Cummings 21′
0 –2 Padrotta (pen) 32′
0 –3 Dziubinski 46′
0 –4 Padrotta 63′
0 –5 Cummings 74′
0 –6 Chandra 81′
In a match that never progressed past walking pace, Narrabundah trounced a hapless Olympic who played a large section of the match with 9 men and never had more than 10.
The match started at a pace that would have had Div 10 teams looking on disgust with Narrabundah spectacularly failing to push their numerical advantage in the early phases. After an initial period of horrible misplaced passes and cheap turnovers, an extra Olympic player turned up to take their number to 10 players, and through the mistaken belief (or poor counting) that Olympic had 11, Narrabundah picked up their game.
After some guilt edge chances went begging and some terrific saves from the only player on the pitch who was up for the game, the Olympic goalkeeper, Narrabundah finally took the lead through a neat Cummings finish. Soon after they had their second when some rash challenges lead to a penalty which was comfortably converted by Cale ‘Crazy Legs’ Padrotta. The rest of the half was a similar story to the opening 20 minutes with Narrabundah not really looking interested in forcing the issue and Olympic offering very little in attacking play.
After a somewhat grumpy half time chat in which coach Romero politely ‘encouraged’ his players to show some interest in the game, the Reds re-emerged with something resembling interest and went 3-0 up almost directly from the kick-off when a Padrotta long ball found a sprinting Dziubinski by himself in the box where he managed a clinical finish from an acute angle.
Narrabundah were now sensing the game was safe and were pushing on in numbers with everyone wanting to get on the score sheet. Their hopes of scoring were further boosted when Padrotta cynically hacked down a knobbly knee’d Olympic midfielder who as a result could take no further part in the match, sending Olympic back down to 9 men.
Not happy with this, Padrotta pushed on in an attempt to add to his tally and eventually found some space well outside the box for one of his trademark bombs. Unfortunately, the new Jabulani ball took an odd bounce in the altitude of Kaleen, resulting in a horrible scuffed effort that trickled towards goal as Padrotta’s screams of anguish echoed around the ground. Horrified by that effort, Padrotta was promptly substituted. However, while this substitution was occurring, Padrotta’s shot was still trickling towards the goal and amazingly, the keeper was also fooled by the strange movement of the Jabulani, allowing the ball to trickle straight into the goal where it didn’t even have the momentum to reach the back of the net.
Narrabundah were now in party mode, a really lazy party mode. Cummings finished another neat chance meaning both him Padrotta were on hatricks, prompting the return of Padrotta as he tried to beat Cummings to the punch. Cummings came closest with a late effort coming back off the crossbar from close range. The scoring was wrapped up by Chandra late on as a delightful set-up by Romero found him all by himself on the edge of the 6-yard box were he coolly converted.
Thankfully the referee didn’t string the game out much longer and both teams left the field in a friendly manner, Dziubinski having to be reminded that he couldn’t exchange shirts with the opposition.
In the end, probably the easiest game Narrabundah will have all year, and fortunately for them, it came after two weeks of interrupted trainings and a weekend off. Next week Woden awaits and Narrabundah will need a much improved performance and a result if they are to have any chance of tracking down the runaway top 3 as well as keeping a comfortable gap from the chasing pack.