Tigers Feast on Chicken
In a match that was billed as “A Close One”, Balmain easily accounted for Roosters FC last Sunday by 4 goals to 2. The Tigers were greeted on their trip to Auburn by a sizeable crowd, a scorching sunny day, and a lightning fast pitch on which you could have played a great game of bowls.
A goal in the first half by Hardwick involving good interchange play with Bracewell was cancelled out before the break when a schoolboy refereeing error allowed a roosters player to take a free kick whilst the ball was trickling? rolling? ..I’ll go with speeding down the line, and the resulting pass was smashed into the top corner by a Roosters forward.
Not letting it get to them (too much), Balmain emerged in the 2nd half and took the game by the scruff of the neck, totally dominating play. It was now that the Roosters realised how much running they had done to keep up with the Tigers in the first half and, within the space of 7 minutes, Johnny Buonavoglia had converted a penalty and superbly hit an angled drive that gave the keeper no chance. At 3-1 the Balmain boys kept applying the pressure and should have put the game away long before Delaney fumbled a cross and presented Roosters with a soft goal. This seem to stir the Tigers even more and before you could say cluck cluck Hatzidavid popped up in the area with an unmarked header to put the game out of reach. Man of the Match once again was hard to pick but through his tireless and inaudible performance in midfield, the beer went to Graeme Shannon.
In the lead-up game, the reserves struggled to beat the heat early as the mercury entered the 30s. Another goalkeeping blunder saw them concede early to a harmless hoof up the middle but Admir Samjovic was able to beat the offside trap and calmly round the keeper to make it 1-1. Balmain wasted a string of chances both before and after half time and with 5 minutes remaining it looked as if the 3 points would slip away. But Smajovic popped up late with a surging counter-attack through the middle and finished with aplomb to give the Tigers a deserved 2-1 victory.
