Mitch Dent

There’s a saying in football “you have to take your chances” and nothing truer could be said about Kingborough Lions first win in the PS4 NPL TAS for 2017.  Benny Kovadio clearly wasn’t in Western Australia as we were lead to believe but rather jinking past Northern Rangers players as he scored the match winner to gain the Lions 3 valuable points.

The opening twenty minutes saw Rangers on the front foot and looking to atone for their previous 1-0 defeat to Nelson.  The northerners were positive with their ball movement and looked to pin back the lions in their own half.

Rangers had a great opportunity in the 24th minute through  Nick Lanau-Atkinson, his brother Pat put a cross into the back post where Nick LA had time and space but Kamara was up to the task and made a wonderful save to deny the Rangers captain.

As the half went on so did Benny’s influence his ability to go either way was causing the Rangers all sorts of problems which resulted in him being fouled 2 times within five minutes which the Lions did not take advantage of.

The game really sprung into action after halftime and it was Korean sensation Danny Jin driving into the box with Jack Gates holding his shirt and pushing him down, the referee had no hesitation in pointing the spot. In previous weeks Pat LA would step up and take charge but Jin looked confident and determined to be the difference. His effort was saved by Kamara and once again the Rangers supporters could only sit and think what if?

On the 78th minute the Rangers had pushed numbers forward in search of a winner but found out that not only do you have to attack but you also have to defend. Benny Kovadio was played in down the left by Cowen and was able to find half a yard and skip past Marshall Pooley to fire an effort on that hit the post and went in to give his side a 1-0 lead.

The Lions then could have doubled their lead through Danny Cowen, as a beautifully weighted cross was delivered in the frontman who headed just over the top. It mattered not though as a delighted Lions side claimed their first win of the season and will be hoping to use this as a springboard for the rest of the season.

Kingborough Lions coach Gabrial Markaj cut a happy man post game.

“Yes we like to play tricks and Benny may go to Western Australia this week or next week but we don’t always tell the truth. We haven’t really changed anything, but the players are getting more used to each other every week and we are really happy with this win “

A frustrated Lino Scuilli expressed his disappointment:

“When you miss penalties its hard to win games, we could have beaten Zebras and we could have beaten Nelson and could have won today against Kingborough but we didn’t and we move on. Nothing’s changed since the Zebras game, but these things happen. We will move on and look forward to next week”