CONNER Brown had a day to remember, booting five goals, to lead Swan Hill’s senior men’s team to an emphatic 9-0 win in the Bendigo Amateur Soccer League season opener.
Angus Op’t Hoog also netted a hat-trick in a comprehensive rout of Moama-Echuca Border Raiders in Moama on Saturday.
Brown got the ball rolling with his first goal in the 14th minute, before Op’t Hoog added his first a minute later to set the tone for the afternoon.
The pair combined for three more goals in the next 30 minutes to open up a 5-0 half-time break.
The onslaught continued in the second half, with Brown and Op’t Hoog adding a further three goals between them – while recruit Damiano Grasso scored his first goal in Swan Hill colours in the 72nd minute.
Swan Hill coach Tony Di Palma was full of praise when speaking with The Guardian following his team’s impressive first round performance.
“For round one, I wasn’t expecting that level of performance from our boys or for that number of goals to be scored,” Di Palma said.
“Joel Page in defence was outstanding, he kept our backline pretty set with their formation, which was really good – and Cooper in the midfield and Conner Brown with his five goals were magnificent as well.
“Conner is just in a different league and that shows every time he plays – those three players were really good for us, but in saying that the new guys that have just come into the team were exceptional as well.
“All in all, it was a solid team effort, but in saying that, they were missing a couple of players as well – but you can only play who your opposition put out there and that was our advantage in the end.”
The men’s team weren’t the only ones to take to the pitch on the weekend, with the club’s under 16 boys team taking on Golden City Eaglehawk on Saturday morning.
Despite going down 9-5, there were plenty of positives to come out of the match – especially considering it was the side’s first game together.
The other big positive was the form of striker Fakhri Amran, who put all five of Swan Hill’s goals into the back of the net.
