Sour Grapes at Bernie’s
Saturday night’s road trip to Kellyville ended in disappointment for the travelling Balmain fans, with the Tigers ending up on the wrong end of a 3-0 scoreline. Balmain were forced into a number of changes due to several injuries and the suspension of Julian Bracewell, and a 10th minute injury to centre half Keith Agnew meant Paul Ritchie had to back up after just finishing a full game for the reserves. Despite this, the Tigers dominated the possession and chances in the first half, and Kellyville had their keeper to thank for keeping the game scoreless at half time. The second half continued much the same as the first until Kellyville scored totally against the run of play. The ball was hoofed up the middle and Kellyville’s pacy centre forward beat the onrushing keeper Steve Lewis to the ball, nodding it past him with his head to make it 1-0.
Kellyville’s confidence grew after the goal and they shortly made it 2-0, although to be fair they were aided by a refereeing blunder. The eventual scorer was lying down on the goal line after overrunning the ball and goalkeeper and falling over. A teammate took a shot and the player on the ground headed in the low flying ball. As he was past the goalkeeper and had only one Balmain player level with him he should have been called offside, but alas the officials don’t know the offside law too well. Kellyville scored their third goal near the end of the match with a quality end-to-end counter attack as Balmain pushed forward in search of goals. Definitely a game where the scoreline did not reflect the close nature of the contest.
Injuries and suspensions also affected the reserve team lineup, so much so that Jimmy Campbell came out of semi-retirement to play up front. After missing a couple of half chances, the Tigers allowed Kellyville to take the lead midway through the first half with their first meaningful attack. Jem Richardson then had a chance to level the scores with a penalty, but his effort straight down the middle was easily saved by the Kellyville keeper. Alex Kaltenegger came within a whisker of scoring his first goal since last century, heading a corner inches wide shortly before the half time break. The second half started badly for the Tigers with Honza Capek taken to hospital after a nasty head clash saw him spouting blood from his eyelid like a broken sauce bottle. On a side note, I’m reliably informed that the doctors at the hospital worked around the clock to glue his split eye back together, and Honza would like all the ladies to know that he’s still looking as good as ever – out of the other one. Anyway, back at Bernie’s, Kellyville attempted to sit back and defend their lead but against the top scoring Tigers this was never going to work. Paul Ritchie turned in man of the match Peter Glavis’ cross to level the scores shortly before full time. Then with Kellyville barely hanging on, Steve Lewis almost won the game at the death, only to see the Kellyville keeper make a great last ditch save to keep the score 1-1.
