MATCH OF THE WEEK

Sorrento v Perth Soccer Club (5)

Perth continue to sit atop the Football West State Premier League pile after a 5-0 hammering of Champions Sorrento at Percy Doyle Reserve on Sunday. It was total domination from Graham Normanton’s men, with scintillating one and two touch football cutting the Gulls defence to shreds. The Dorrien Gardens side has scored 17 goals in four League matches and are yet to concede a goal.

Nikita Rukavytsya continued his rich vein of form with two more goals to make his personal tally eight in four, before limping out of the action just before half time with a leg strain. Second half goals to Barry Wood, Captain Robbie Puca and Antonio Naglieri capped off the rout.

Perth were ahead after only four minutes after a delightful diagonal ball over the Sorrento defence from Costas Socratous bounced nicely for Rukavytsya to lob the advancing keeper from the edge of the box. It was two to Perth on 19 minutes after a Todd Howarth shot from outside the area deflected into the path of Rukavytsya and his angled shot from inside the area beat the keeper and found its way into the bottom corner.

Rukavytsya was involved in every dangerous move for Perth but limped out of the action on 37 minutes with a slight leg strain, Coach Graham Normanton not wanting to risk his star striker with Cockburn and Floreat in the weeks ahead.

Sorrento’s best and only chance of the half came as Perth keeper Gareth Deeg could only punch a corner as far as Jared Love on the edge of the area whose first time attempt flew over the bar when he should have hit the target.

If Sorrento were hoping to get back into the contest in the second half, they were sorely mistaken as Barry Wood tapped home on 52 minutes after a stinging shot from substitute Scott Bulloch was too hot for the Sorrento keeper Anthony Cochrane to handle.

Sorrento battled manfully but could not find a way past the superb Perth defence of Icanovski, Circati and the impressive Trent Kay who repelled every ball forward for the Gulls.

On 67 minutes Perth were awarded an indirect free kick six yards from goal when Gary Faria’s stinging low cross into the danger area was touched to the keeper by the Sorrento defender, the referee blowing for a back pass. Robbie Puca curled the resulting free kick through the wall of Gulls players on the line to all but finish off the match.

There was still time for one more however, Antonio Naglieri using the outside of his right boot to blast in a 25 yarder just inside the upright that gave Cochrane no chance. It was a perfect build up for Perth, with the ball coming from inside the Perth area and passing though no less than seven players before Naglieri bulged the net.

A straight faced Graham Normanton was happy to come away with all three points after another superb display of football from his side. “We played pretty well all day, I thought there was never much danger for us in the whole game and we scored five and could have probably scored another five or six, but when you come up to Percy Doyle you’ll take a win at this place no matter who has the shirt on, so it was pleasing” said the Perth coach.

Normanton was keen to talk up his defence who are yet to concede a goal in his side’s last eight competitive matches with particular praise to Michael Icanovski.

“Michael is one of the best defenders in the League. People think he’s 35 but he’s only 25 so he’ll be around for a lot of years yet and he’s probably one of the best defenders that WA has seen for a long time and really doesn’t get the accolades he deserves. Michael is just Mr. Consistent and performs week in week out and rarely do you get a bad game out of him and rarely does a striker get the better of him,” said Normanton.

With his side facing a mouth watering clash against Floreat Athena in two weeks time, Normanton was quick to point out that his only concern is on next week’s clash against high flying Cockburn City.

“No, we haven’t got one eye on Floreat, our eyes are on Cockburn and it’s a week to week proposition for us, so we don’t look past that. If we keep doing our job we’ll be happy,” he said.

Squads:

Sorrento: Cochrane (GK), Cagorski, Morgan, Harnwell, Flatt, Worthy, S McDonald, Love, Trpevski, Gurovski, Subs: G McDonald, Ross, Wimbridge, Trajkoski, Neville

Perth: Deeg (GK), Kay, Icanovski, Ord, Puca, Wood, Howarth, Circati, Naglieri, Socratous, Rukavytsya Subs: Bulloch, Faria, Velaphi

Match Reporter: Ben Fitzpatrick


Cockburn City (2) v Inglewood United (0)

Cockburn City’s strong start to the season continued with a compelling 2-0 victory over Inglewood United. The coaching battle saw two Perth Glory legends go head to head with Scott Miller leading Cockburn and Bobby Despotovski coaching Inglewood, but it was the former defender who saw his side get off to a bright start.

Cockburn took the lead in the 6th minute through Shane Nunes. The defender was forward for a corner and firmly headed the ball from 8 yards, leaving Inglewood ‘keeper Oliver Taseski stranded. Twelve minutes later City doubled their lead through Dean Wallace, who tapped in from six yards after brilliant lead-up play from Josh Kamaz and Jason Dos Santos.

The tempo of the match slowed down after the second goal with Cockburn content to play cautiously without being too defensive. The best chance for the remainder of the half fell to Daniel Neiderberger, who’s shot on the volley from 18 yards sailed narrowly over.

Cockburn almost extended their lead in the 46th minute, when Kamaz had his 20 yard effort brilliantly saved by Taseski.

United were unlucky not to score in the 62nd minute when lively winger Jason Colli was played in-behind but had his shot brilliantly saved by the Cockburn ‘keeper, who got down to the low shot just in time. Colli was sent off just seconds later for a second yellow card, leaving Inglewood with little chance of saving the game. Cockburn came close to putting the icing on the cake in the 90th minute when Mileta Miletic had his close range shot bounce off the post.

Cockburn coach Miller was understandably pleased with the effort of his side. “That was probably the first game that we’ve played for 90 minutes and we played some really nice football,” Miller said.

“We’re very happy with the result of course but more importantly we played some good football.”

Inglewood coach Despotovski was not impressed with the performance of the traveling side. “We absolutely deserved to be 2-0 down and they deserved to beat us,” said Despotovski.

“We played very undisciplined football today and too their credit they scored two good goals so we didn’t deserve to get anything out of today.”

Squads:

Cockburn City: D Pacella, M De Felice, S Nunes, P Kuzet, P Natale, J Dos Santos, M Mirco, D De Felice, J Mirco, D Wallace, J Kamaz, A Pierrera, M Alesksic, G De Bartolo, L Lopresti, M Miletic.

Inglewood United: O Taseski, S Pryce, D Kovacevic, D Stoitis, M Baczynski, R Aguirre, D Neiderberger, A Colli, J Colli, D Apelgren, M Kovacevic, L Bamber, K Griffiths, B Craig, A Osei Tu, J Duncan.

Football West Match Reporter – Jacob Kagi


Western Knights (5) v Fremantle Spirit (1)

Western Knights has staked their claims as premiership contenders this season after thumping Fremantle Spirit 5-1 at Nash Field today.

In a dominant display of team football, the Knights had five separate goal-scorers in the rout with Jukic, Price, Trim, Montgomery and Bushby all scoring.

Only four minutes had elapsed in the match when the home side took the lead through exciting talent Jukic, the quick midfielder worked his way behind the Freo defence before blasting low into the corner of the net.

The Knights were sharp and precise with veteran Paul Cooke dangerous on the left flank with his pace causing the Sprit all sorts of problems.

David Price added the Knights second of the match when a deep by-line cross sat delightfully for the gracious midfielder who headed in from close range to extend the lead.

As the visitors slowly settled into the game, they were dealt a blow when striker Daniel Trim grabbed his 2nd goal in successive weeks latching onto a long ball just ahead of Freo goalkeeper Steve Grant, who could only watch helplessly as the ball rolled in for the Knights third.

With the birth of new son Darcy, striker Scott Montgomery had twice as much to celebrate when he knocked in the Knights fourth two minutes into the 2nd half before celebrating with the traditional “rocking the cradle “number.

Scott Bushby was next to score nine minutes later, poking home from close range after confusion in the Fremantle six yard box.

Fremantle could have grabbed their first minutes later when they were awarded a penalty but Perth Glory goalkeeper Tommi Tomich was up to the task parrying away David Araya’s effort.

The visitors showed fight and determination in the final twenty minutes and were given some consolation when Dale Wingell headed past Tomich late in the second half.

Western Knights coach Ronnie Campbell was thrilled with the way the team performed as a whole.

“It was our best team performance we’ve had all year; to have five players on the score sheet is a great sign that we can perform as a team unit,” he said.

Campbell also praised talented midfielder Andrija Jukic, who was arguably the best on field.

“Andrija was man of the match for us today and I really believe he can play in the A-League. He’s trialed with Perth Glory and I like to think they would look at him again,” Campbell added.

The Knights head north next Saturday for a battle with Wanneroo City.

Squads:

Knights: Tomich, Mathers, Higgins, Price, Mujic, Dawson, Jukic, Bushby, Trim, Montgomery, Cooke (Gavranich).

Spirit: Grant, Darby, Gilford, Straker (Draper), McBride, Rose (Kuppusamy), Barrera, Wingell, Araya, Christie, Odong.

Football West Match Reporter – Beau Crompton