Photos: Brett Klucznik

Report by Alasdair Beer

A moment of individual brilliance from Ryan Clarke proved the difference as Inglewood United beat Perth Glory Youth 2-1 at Inglewood Stadium. 

Clarke gathered the ball near halfway before weaving through the Glory defence and clipping his shot over Jordan Franken on 68 minutes

Scott Witschge had put Inglewood ahead five minutes before, capitalising on his side’s early second half dominance to lash in a powerful strike.

They then survived a frenetic last 10 minutes, as a resurgent Glory scored through a calmly taken Stefan Valentini penalty.

The Glory pressed hard for an equaliser, but were denied by alert goalkeeping from Aleksandar Vrteski.

Valentini got under Inglewood’s skin all day and was a handful for their defenders from the outset.

The match came alive when he and Vrteski had to be separated by the referee after scuffling a minute before half time.

Inglewood coach Michael Garcia was unimpressed by his side’s sluggish start, and a half-time blast resulted in a dominant second half display. 

“We were second to every ball in the first half, but in the second half we came out with a bit more drive,” he said.

Garcia was satisfied with the result, if not the performance.

“We’ve played pretty well throughout the season without getting the result, but today we didn’t quite play as well, but came away with the points.”

Glory Coach John Gibson felt his side could have been better in the final third.

“We had some chances in the first half, but we tried to be too elaborate,” he said.

“We’ll go away and keep working hard on creating and taking those opportunities.”

Inglewood host in-form Floreat Athena in a night match next week, whilst the Glory travel to Bayswater City.

Perth Glory 1 (Valentini pen 82mins)
Inglewood United 2 (Witsche 63mins, Clarke 68)
Saturday May 9, 2015
Inglewood Stadium
Referee: Josh MANNELLA

Perth Glory: GK Jordan FRANKEN, 2 Ali GHOLAMI, 3 Jacob COLLARD (C), 4 Nathan COSTELLO, 5 Tom KING, 6 Calvin WHITNEY, 7 Sam MACKEARNAN (13 Sean TROUP 77), 8 Dejan SPASESKI, 9 Stefan VALENTINI, 10 Slobodan VULIN (12 Matthew NTOUMENOPOULOS 64) 11 Nick TALIMDZIOSKI
Substitutes not used: 15 Hayden STEVENS ,14 Alex TANEVSKI, 20 Jordan YOUNG

Inglewood United: GK Aleksandar VRTESKI, 2 Rikki SMITH, 5 Scott BLACKMORE (C), 6 Matthew IZZO (7 Kenny KEOGH 56), 8 Scott WITSCHGE, 9 Ryan CLARKE, 11 David SESAY (14 Jarrod MCNALLY 83), 12 Tim GOULD, 13 Jovo PAVLOVIC, 18 Jason COLLI, 21 Abdul SESAY
Substitutes not used: 3 Mark BARNETT, 19 James ATKINS, 25 Mitchell PAPAS
Yellow cards: A. Sesay 61min