THE Swan Hill men’s soccer team progressed through to the second round of the Bendigo Amateur Soccer League’s knockout League Cup competition, after a come-from-behind 4-3 win over the Deniliquin Wanderers on Sunday.
A Liam Baldwin hat-trick helped Swan Hill secure their place in the next round, to be played this Sunday, with Baldwin’s 89th minute winner breaking the deadlock and sending them through to the second round ahead of overtime.
Trailing 3-1 at half-time, Baldwin and his Swan Hill teammates turned the match on its head, with Swan Hill men’s coach Tony Di Palma full of praise for the way his team fought back.
”It was a scrappy game, the first 10 minutes of the match we were dominating and to be honest, I think perhaps our boys relaxed a little bit and thought it might have been an easy game after we scored that first early goal,” Di Palma told The Guardian.
“But Deniliquin have some new players and they all looked pretty good, we were a bit shellshocked to be honest and we lost our way a little bit in that first half.
“We just lost our structure and we weren’t zoning, but we had a good chat at half-time and we went back to working on the basics, because we really were just making basic mistakes.
“The second half was a totally different game, the boys came out and attacked the contest and as soon as we scored again, we started really playing as a team.
“Our communication was good, our fitness was good and we started creating several opportunities, it was a pretty rough game, but the last 40 minutes we played really well.
“I was pretty proud of the boys, we used all our substitutions and everyone got a good run.
“Karl Fedele went on and played really well, Jye Wright was good, but everyone pitched in in that second half.”
Also in action over the weekend was Swan Hill’s women’s soccer team, who begun their BASL League 2 season with a 5-0 loss on the road to Kyneton District Blue.
After conceding just one goal in a physical first half, the Swans fell away after half-time, with the away side also receiving three yellow cards to Amity Scott, Judaya Majur and Rhyleigh Pope-Frazer.
Despite the result, Swan Hill women’s assistant coach Emma Pitts said the score was far from a true reflection of how competitive the Swans were.
“We were happy with our first half, our effort and attack on the ball was first class and even though they scored, it was a really positive way to start the season,” Pitts said.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to sustain it for the full 90 minutes and we just fell away for about a 15 minute period through the second half.
“They’re a good side and the final score is in no way a true reflection on the game, we definitely deserved to be a lot closer in the end than a 5-0 loss.”
It was Swan Hill’s first match together as a team, with the side absorbing many of the clubs under-16 girls players over the off-season.
With another 17 home-and-away games still to come, the team are well aware their best soccer is still to come.
“We have a few things to work on, but I suppose that’s the nature of early season games,” Pitts said.
“You can do all the work during pre-season and in practice matches but until you get out and play for points you never really know where you stand.
“Our connection between our defence, mids and forwards wasn’t quite there at times, but we have a very new squad and Saturday was their first time playing together, so that’s to be expected.
“There were plenty of positives, our back four were huge and were really solid in defence and our speed up forward at times troubled their defensive line.
“We’ll tweak a few things this week and focus on a couple of areas at training, but we’re certainly heading in the right direction.”
The better players for Swan Hill were defenders Abbey Houlihan, Amity Scott and Sarah Feltrin, along with goal keeper Sarah Scott and forward Trinity Shelton.
