By Caleb Mitchell

A second-half fightback from Tuggeranong United has helped them to a 4-3 win over Tigers FC in a thrilling clash at Greenway on Sunday.

The win continued Tuggeranong’s perfect start, while leaving Tigers winless from their first two matches.

Tigers looked lively to start the match and new signing Nicholas Villafane tested the defence early, before opening the scoring from a penalty in the 21^st minute.

The visitors continued to push and Alex Oloriegbe doubled the advantage just over ten minutes later as he fired home following a sweeping move that saw him exchange passes with Niko Kalfas before slotting the ball past Rory Larkin in goals.

That put the game under the control of Tigers, but Tuggeranong refused to drop off and when Aisosa Ihegie raced past two defenders in the box and fired past Jakob Cole it gave them a lifeline back into the match approaching the half.

Tigers thought they had another penalty early on in the second half only for the call to be overturned to a free-kick, and the set piece was merely struck into the wall by Villafane.

United’s Cameron Doherty went down on the hour mark in some pain, and was replaced by Josip Jadric who was to make an immediate impact.

A long ball was played to Danny Crkovski who controlled it before turning and shooting, and when Cole could only parry the effort Jadric pounced to slip past him on the ground and level up the scores.

It was all United at that stage and Crkovski gave Tuggeranong their first lead of the match when he fired in a rebound from Cole of Ihegie’s effort with less than 20 minutes left.

The game appeared to be sealed in the 80^th minute through Tom Pagett, the big forward tapping home from close range after brilliant work from Ihegie down the left.

There was still time for late drama however as Villafane continued to pressure the United defence, and he fired home from the edge of the area in injury time to close the gap but it was too late as United held on for a 4-3 win.