Following last week's loss which was largely caused by personnel absences from the first team squad, this was a much better performance. We fielded a variety of players with various levels of fitness and 1st team experience and we did the best with what we had. Steve Liddle made his debut as captain with AH being away attending to family matters in the UK.
The match started well with Villa applying pressure and Subiaco showing they were a challenging opponent. Each team had their share of possession and it wasn't long before Subiaco found the net. This resulted from a lack of marking and Subi being able to find the unmarked player. Villa showed spirit and continued to battle on. Around the 35th minute the Subi captain retaliated to a challenge and kicked one of our players and the ref had no choice but show him the red card. We very quickly began to capitalise on the advantage.
The first goal came from Gavin passing the ball wide on the left to Kenji who beat his opponent and played a centring ball that Liam slotted in.
The tide was changing and we went into the rooms at 1-1. The talk was positive and with growing enthusiasm and a numbers advantage we could see a win on the cards.
The second goal came from a brilliant interception by Yoni in the defensive third who dribbled up the field and took advantage of the counter attack by releasing Kenji wide on the left. The ball being squared low by Kenji and Yousuff Sagaale running the ball into the back of the net.
Minutes later the third goal came from a long throw by Gavin who found a leaping header from new team member Pete, who headed down and passed the keeper at the far post.
Villa was well and truly in command and played some decent football in patches. Subiaco did manage to get forward at times though we defended solidly and Sean was only troubled a couple of times. Bartlett attempted to extract a penalty from the referee to no avail and we could have scored on a number of occasions.
None the less, a good win for the Villa and with the points we go up the table and are not far from challenging the league leaders.
On a side note, not sure who provided this biased report to the league but clearly this person was not present at Gerry Archer Athletic on Sunday
