By ADEM SARICAOGLU
THE West’s two Victorian Premier League combatants won’t remember Sunday fondly.
Both Melbourne Knights and Green Gully suffered losses in their week one finals battles against Bentleigh Greens and South Melbourne and as a result, only the Knights remain in the hunt for VPL glory this season.
First up on Sunday were the Knights in their home qualifying final against the Greens, where a Luke Sherbon hat-trick helped sink the home team to a crushing 4-2 defeat.
Sherbon opened the scoring shortly after the half-hour mark and doubled his tally eight minutes later.
But in the shadows of half time the Knights struck back via an Andrew Barisic penalty to make it 2-1 as both clubs went into the sheds.
Their cause wasn’t helped when David Stirton made it 3-1 in the 51st minute but Chris Talajic was able to strike back for the Knights 10 minutes later.
In what proved to be a goal-fest at Knights Stadium, Sherbon then completed his hat-trick in the 70th minute, killing off the contest to send the Knights into a cut-throat semi-final against South Melbourne on Friday night.
South Melbourne booked its place in that fixture courtesy of a thrilling 1-0 win over Green Gully at Lakeside Stadium on Sunday evening.
The tight and tense elimination final remained deadlocked at 0-0 and looked destined for extra time, save for a last-minute strike from Tyson Holmes that kicked Gully out of the VPL finals series.
With Green Gully now out of the picture just four clubs remain in the race, with Northcote City set to do battle with Bentleigh in the first semi-final on Saturday evening.
The Knights’ battle with their arch-rival will kick off at 7.30 this Friday night.
