Young Suns are on song

June 10 2014

Shepparton News

The fall of the ball finally fell the way of Goulburn Valley Suns at Jack Edwards Reserve on Sunday.

The National Premier League club’s junior teams claimed three wins from six matches against strong Oakleigh Cannons sides, including single-goal thrillers in the under-14 and under-16 competitions.

Just as the latter contest appeared destined to finish 1-1, a clever ball from Rocky Papalia unlocked the Cannons’ defence and Christian Maheshe timed his run to perfection to score the winner with two minutes to play.

The under-14 clash was just as exciting.

Goals to Thomas Corso and Ezekiel Mancini-Fiske put the Suns 2-1 to the good midway through the second half, but the woodwork twice came to their rescue as the home side was denied a share of the points in a nail-biting end-to-end contest.

With coach Craig Carley unavailable, Suns junior technical director Pat Kielty took the reins and paid particular tribute to stand-in under-13 goalkeeper Lucas Enders, whose bravery was key in holding on to the three points.

The Suns also claimed victory in the under-12 game.

Josh Rachele was handed the armband in the absence of regular captain Stefan Pigatto, and scored both goals in a 2-0 win.

The under-18s lost 3-0, the 15s went down 5-1 and the 13s were beaten 3-1.

Kielty said draws would have been fair results in two of the Suns’ wins.

‘‘It’s happened to us a couple of times in different age groups this year, so it’s nice to end games on a high,’’ Kielty said.

‘‘The 13s were just off their game, although they were missing a few players and the team they were playing were a strong outfit as well.

‘‘The score (in the under-15 game) does not reflect how close that game was and you can ask the Oakleigh parents the same question, they’ll say the same.

‘‘The 18s played well, but you could tell some of them had played 20s the night before.’’

Kielty said the overall weekend results were positive and reflected the club’s efforts to field players in their rightful age group.

‘‘Last Wednesday we got the whole club together and we had a bit of a chat to all the kids, 18s downwards, and said to them we’re struggling for numbers and it’s not about you and your team, it’s about the club as a whole,’’ he said.

‘‘I asked them nicely to put their hand up — you’ve just played a game — but step up and play one more game for the club and there were no arguments (on Saturday), there were volunteers all around and it was good to see.’’