February 12, 2023
Below the A-League in Australia there are 8 regional leagues making up the National Premier League, the second highest level of football in Australia, representing New South Wales, Northern NSW, ACT, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. Up to 2019, the champions from each region competed in the knock-out Grand Finals to determine the overall winner but these were not held thereafter due to Covid restrictions. It has been announced that the Grand Final will also not be held this year either.
The NPL NSW now consists of 16 teams, having expanded from 12 last season. In past seasons the top 5 qualified for the end of season Finals Series but this year there will not be a Final Series. Instead, the side top of the table after the 30 game season will be crowned champions, whilst the bottom two will be relegated.
Today’s entertainment was a match from the second round of the season between APIA Leichhardt and Rockdale Ilinden.
In 2022 APIA finished 5th but were eliminated by Blacktown City in the quarter-final play-off. Rockdale Illinden finished in 6th place, level on points with APIA but with a worse goal difference.
The 2021 season was abandoned due to Covid, Rockdale Ilinden reached the final in 2020 but lost on penalties to Sydney United, whilst APIA were winners in 2019. However, the place in the 2019 Grand Finals went to Wollongong Wolves, who were champions over the regular season.
APIA Leichhardt are one of the most famous clubs in Australia. They were founded in 1954 by immigrant Italians under the name Associazione Poli-sportiva Italo Australiana ( APIA ) and won the Premiership of NSW of the years 1964, 1966, 1967 and 1975, which was the highest level of achievement in the absence of a national competition. The also won the NPL NSW in 2017.
APIA’s Jimmy Rooney and Peter Ollerton were part of the Australian squad in the 1974 World Cup Finals in West Germany, where midfielder Rooney played all three matches and forward Ollerton made two appearances as a substitute.
APIA home colours are claret shirts, and white shorts. Home is Lambert Park in the Inner-West suburbs and is a purpose-built football venue. This stadium is apparently unusual in that the playing field runs east-west rather than the usual north to south.
The northern grandstand runs the length of the field seating around 1200 spectators in 8 rows whilst the building on the southern side has the dressing room facilities on the bottom floor with a social club viewing area above plus press facilities and media facilities. There is a small hill behind one goal with a handful of park benches for spectators.
The stadium has a nominal capacity of 7,000 and now has an artificial surface, although there appeared to be a slope from east to west.
The expectation at APIA this season is clear. After finishing fifth last season, the side have high ambitions on winning the title in 2023, and with talk of a B-League being created to start in March 2024, with automatic promotion and relegation with the A-League, APIA aim to position themselves as candidates for the new league.
The league website reported that APIA have appointed club legend and former Olyroo Franco Parisi as head coach and he had been busy strengthening their squad whilst at the same time maintaining the core of last season’s team. Big things are expected from ex-Mount Druitt Town Ranger striker/winger Jack Stewart and youth midfielder Franco Farinella.
Rockdale Ilinden, previously known as Rockdale City Suns FC, are located in the southern suburbs of Sydney, not too far from the International Airport. The club were founded in 1969 by immigrant Macedonians, and Ilinden is the St Elijah’s Uprising Day, celebrated with a public holiday on August 2nd in Macedonia.
Their normal colours are red and black strips and black shirts but today were in their change kit of white shirts and black shorts.
Like APIA, Rockdale are hoping to do better than last season and in Paul Dee, also have a new coach. The league website reported that perhaps Rockdale’s most important signing was being able to keep hold of forward Alec Urosevski, who with 20 goals was the league’s second highest goalscorer last season and contributed over half of his side’s goals. There are also high hopes for Lachlan Constable, who has joined the club from the Western Sydney Wanderers academy. On the eve of the start of the season Rockdale announced the signing of 34 year old Frenchman Loic Puyo who had previously represented Macarthur in the A-League, and made over 200 appearances for Amiens, Angers, Orleans and Red Star in his home country.
APIA opened their season with a 2-2 draw at Wollongong Wolves. After falling 0-2 behind after less than 20 minutes, goals from Rory Jordan and Sean Symons salvaged a point. APIA dominated the second half and came close to sneaking the win in added on time.
Rockdale took three points from opening fixture, winning 4-3 at newly promoted St George’s City in a see-saw goal-fest. Urosevski grabbed two goals to maintain his Mr 50% reputation.
Matches from the NPL NSW are live streamed on Bet365.com. Matches can also be watched for free on the league website www.npl.tv after creating an account
Match tickets were 15 AUD, 10 AUD for pensioners and concessions, and under 16s go free. Only one person was selling tickets so a fairly large queue built up as kick-off approached. Unexpectedly, a match programme had been produced and was free. A healthy crowd was in attendance, swelled by a large number of young boys and girls out for the occasion but many of them were more interested in playing with their mates rather than watching the proceedings happening on the pitch !
There were also long queues at the two food outlets, and the buckets of chips were doing a roaring trade, but unusually for Australian sport, no beer appeared to be on sale.
The weather at the 17.00 local time kick-off was sunny and 26 degrees. The match officials were in fetching bright blue shirts with black shorts, and from a distance the referee looked like Prince Harry….
The game almost got off to a dramatic start when the APIA keeper mis-controlled a back-pass and the ball was rolling towards the goal but he was able to recover and clear as Urosevski slid in to try and capitalise.
The start of the match was end-to-end with Stewart and Romero combining to tee-up Rory Jordan, on loan from A-League side Newcastle Jets, whose shot was parried by the Rockdale keeper, and Stewart was crowded out before he could pounce, and then Urosevski cut inside to send a left-footed effort straight at the home keeper. Rockdale’s Cholakian sent a 20 yard effort a few feet wide as the visitors looked lively, and Urosevic then showed good pace to latch onto a long ball ahead of Symons but could only steer the bouncing ball a couple of feet over the bar from just inside the area.
APIA responded with Jack Armson running free down the left and his ball into the area fell to Stewart but his shot from 15 yards was pushed away by the diving Bradasevic for a corner.
After 13 minutes it looked like Stewart should score but his goal-bound effort was cleared off the line and Bradasevic gratefully swooped onto the loose ball, and as APIA continued to press, Romero ran along the left-hand goal-line but his effort was blocked by the keeper and cleared.
The high tempo start to the game was noticeable, and the first goal of the game arrived in the 19th minute when Jason Romero ran onto a ball over the top from Monge, and shot left-footed across the face of the goal from a tight angle into the opposite bottom corner to give APIA a 1-0 lead.
Less than 60 seconds later Stewart played in Romero down the right but although the US striker cut-back inside he was tackled before he could shoot. The teams then took a water break after 22 minutes but it was APIA who were the more refreshed as they dominated nearly all of the rest of the half.
Jordan released Kouta on the overlap down the left, but his cross needed to be put off for a corner. Tricky skills from Romero won another corner, from which Muata-Marlow rose the highest but could only put his header a couple of feet over the bar.
The home side doubled their advantage after 30 minutes, a cute flick from Romero put Armson clear and he coolly finished with the outside of his foot as Bradasevic came off his line and attempted to spread himself.
Rockdale did win a corner when Cordier’s dangerous cross from the left needed to be seen out by Kouta. However, that was just a temporary respite, and Jordan’s cross found Stewart inside the Rockdale area, but his volley on the turn was pushed around the post by the diving Bradasevic for another corner.
Rockdale’s Casella made a surging run into the APIA half, brushing off two attempts to foul him, but the third was successful. The free-kick from around 30 yards out was whipped in, but straight to Necevski who made the easy catch.
APIA added to their tally on the stroke of half-time. Jordan’s chip over the square back-line gave Romero the chance to head for goal with Petkovski shadowing him. However, the Rockdale defender gave the striker the space to control the ball and backed-off, enabling Romero to turn onto his right foot and send a tremendous effort into the top corner, giving Bradasevic no chance. The defender should have done better, but it was a great finish.
In an attempt to turn the game around, the visitors made two changes at the break, including taking off the anonymous Puyo and bringing on Antoniou to offer more support to Urosevski upfront, who had virtually disappeared from the game after an impressive first 10 minutes. Four minutes into the half, Urosevski was found with a long ball, but Symons snuffed out the danger with a great tackle.
APIA though scored their 4th with 53 minutes played. Rockdale lost possession trying to play out from the back, and the ball was worked by Jordan to Romero inside the penalty area. The striker beat the hapless Ujdur twice on a mazy run before steering the ball into the keeper’s bottom right hand corner as Bradasevic moved to his left. Another superb finish from the American, who has played in the Swedish third division for Umea and Nykoping, for his hat-trick.
Two minutes later, Romero had an opportunity to add to his haul, but this time Petkovski was able to make the tackle as Romero was about to shoot.
The first yellow card was shown in the 58th minute, APIA’s Monge needlessly pulled back Cordier as the left-back was running away from him, and Necevski then flapped at the free-kick, but Antoniou’s shot from the loose ball hit a defender. Rockdale then evened the yellow card score when a frustrated Antoniou committed a nasty looking foul on his namesake in the APIA team.
Rockdale had a brief good spell and Casella played a nice give and go with Danzo but was denied by a sliding tackle at the expense of a corner.
The home quickly reasserted their dominance in the 65th minute though with a fifth goal, although there was an element of controversy about it. After a brutal foul on Romero, left-back Kouta’s powerful 25 yard free-kick struck both posts before rebounding back into play, but after a moment’s hesitation the referee awarded the goal. As someone behind us said, “there is no VAR here !” and I would say the probability was that it didn’t cross the line.
Not that the decision had any bearing on the result, and Romero emphasised the difference between the two sides with his 4th goal, moving onto Ucchino’s through pass to round the keeper and roll the ball into the empty net to make it 6-0 after 75 minutes.
The game petered out after this with a number of substitutions from both sides, including a triple substitution by APIA which saw the introduction of Argentinian forward Diego Celis, who has played for Velez Sarsfield in his home-land, several sides in Israel, Bylis Ballsh in Albania and more recently in the Chile second division. Celis did show good skill to chest control and turn but his 20 yard shot was easy saved, and the last significant piece of action saw Ujdur stumble, Celis robbed him of possession to play-in Kyra but the low cross/cum-shot was blocked for a corner.
In speaking with a Rockdale supporter, he advised that many teams do not enjoy playing at Lambert Park as the pitch is very hard. There were a couple of occasions when there was a high bounce, but I can’t say I noticed anything particularly unusual in the game. In fact, APIA impressed with their quick, one-touch passing football on the floor, with the long ball being used to put Romero into space behind the centre-backs. They looked to have quality throughout their side, but Romero, Stewart and Symons in particular stood out today.
On today’s evidence, Rockdale were outclassed, and can’t use the pitch as an excuse. They have now conceded nine goals in two games, and probably need to concentrate on how to shore up their defence.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable game to watch, and a great advert for the NSW NPL !
APIA Leichhardt : Necevski – Nicolaou( Farinella ), Muata-Marlow, S,Symons, Kouta – Monge ( J.Symons ), Ucchino ( Askew ), Armson ( Celis ), Jordan ( Kyra ) – Stewart, Romero
Rockdale Ilinden : Bradasevic – Mutch ( Ahmed ), Ujdur, Petkovski, Cordier – Casella, Cholakian ( Constable ), Puyo ( Antoniou ), Kuleski ( Sorge ), Kekeris ( Danzo ) - Urosevski
Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwevlGeBfyY
No comments:
Post a Comment