By ADEM SARICAOGLU
SUNSHINE George Cross coach Tony Ciantar was scathing in his assessment of the club’s 1-1 draw with the St Albans Saints in State League One football on Sunday.
The Georgies went into their home clash at Chaplin Reserve warm favourites, facing a young and injury-hit St Albans outfit that was coming off four successive losses.
It all started promisingly enough for the Georgies with Barry Devlin finding the back of the net within the first seven minutes of the clash.
However, that goal was soon cancelled out by Saint Brandon Zezovski, who capitalised from a Sunshine George Cross goal-keeping error on the half-hour mark.
It remained deadlocked at 1-1 for the rest of the match, despite both teams’ desperate efforts in pursuing a winner.
Ciantar told Star afterward it was his side’s lack of a full 90-minute effort that most displeased him on the day.
“We were horrible today, just absolutely horrible,” Ciantar said.
“We started off well in the first 10 minutes and then went to sleep for the next 40 to 50 minutes.
“We couldn’t get out of our blocks – I don’t even know where to start, to be honest.”
Despite showing patches of good touch throughout the 90, Ciantar went on to label the performance George Cross’ worst of the year to date.
“For me it felt like a loss because it’s definitely points that we’ve dropped that we shouldn’t have, and these two points are definitely going to hurt us,” Ciantar said.
“We just went missing for the majority of the game.”
Understandably, St Albans coach Micky Colina was more comfortable with the 1-1 result, but he too was left ruing missed opportunities.
“Given our opportunities we did miss, and if we had a bit of composure and a little bit of quality and probably experience in certain areas, it would’ve been the difference in taking the draw or all three points,” Colina said.
The Georgies remain fourth in State League One, while the Saints are ninth on the table.
In other results across the division, Western Suburbs suffered a 3-1 defeat to Werribee City while Altona Magic enjoyed a 2-1 win over FC Bulleen Lions.
