By Adrian Ceddia
THE Melbourne Knights shot to the top of the Vodafone Cup ladder with a 2-0 victory over Sunshine Georgies in round four on Sunday.
Two lapses of concentration within the first two minutes of each half consigned Sunshine to its first home defeat of the season.
Nathan Calwell slotted through his third goal of the season within a minute of the referee’s first whistle, and Goran Talevski added the second goal just 90 seconds after the start of the second half.
Once again a smile was planted on the face of Joe Biskic, who has coached a winning team for the third time this season.
“Most importantly we didn’t concede a goal,” he said.
“The guys at back especially played pretty well, and they didn’t really give them much chance to score.
“They concentrated for the whole 90 minutes, which is important.
“I know we can penetrate any defence and we created a lot of chances.”
A strong contingent of Melbourne fans travelled the short distance to Chaplin Reserve, and the crowd was on its feet from the first attacking move of the match.
The Georgies took the kick-off but quickly lost possession to hungry Knights midfielders Marco Maisano and Dario Matkovic, before an inch-perfect cross landed on the head of Caldwell at the back post and he nodded the ball past a helpless goalkeeper Martin John.
As flares filled the air with smoke at the other end, Sunshine continued to battle with the raging Knights forwards, who continued on the attack.
When they did go forward, the Georgies ran into the rock-solid Knights defence of Tommy Milardovic, Neven Antic, Ryan Casey and Craig Elvin, who controlled the match from the back half.
Midway through the first period Melbourne thought it had its second goal when Luke Slater slipped the ball past John and into the back of the net, but the goal was disallowed for offside.
Five minutes later another golden opportunity fell to the visitors when Matkovic pounced on a turnover in midfield and careered toward goal.
With only the ’keeper to beat, Matkovic decided instead to lay the ball back to Maisano, but the frantic Georgies defence was on hand to clear in a nick of time.
The score remained 1-0 at the break, and Melbourne needed just over a minute to pounce on more sluggish defence from Sunshine in the second period.
Talevski was at the end of a sweeping move down the middle of the park before receiving on the edge of the penalty area and blasting the ball past John from close range.
Desperate Georgies coach Chris Taylor replaced Tony Neceski and Johnny Cvetanoski with Trent Rixon and Davor Filipovic, and the tactic proved influential as the home side created goal-scoring chances.
Despite a wave of attacks and possession, the Georgies could not find a way through the Knights defence and rarely gave Adrian Cagalj a reason to defend his goal.
Sunshine dropped to the bottom four after the loss, while Melbourne is now equal on top with Oakleigh and Altona.
“There’s a long way to go. It’s only four rounds, but I have to be happy with the way the guys have responded so far,” Biskic said.
The Knights travel to Sydney this week to play Sydney Croatia in a friendly match as the Vodafone Cup season takes a two-week break for the Victorian team’s trip to China to play Tianjin.
