Floreat Athena coach Chris Barbas was happy to see his side return to positive goal difference as they thumped Armadale 5-0 at E&D Litis Stadium on Saturday in the All Flags State Premier League.

Athena ran rampant in the second half after having lead just 1-0 at half time.

Barbas chose not to settle after his team took a game-winning lead, but instead pushed forward and heaped pressure on the Armadale defence, which he explained was primarily to aid his side’s goal difference.

“We’ve been in the negative up until round nine and today we’re into plus one so that was a big emphasis and that’s why I stressed with the guys not to take their foot off the pedal,” he said.

Athena could have won the game by more, after seeing several brilliant chances to score wasted.

The most criminal of which came from striker David Heagney who found himself with an empty net after Army goalkeeper Ellis Hawksworth saved, but failed to push the ball away from goal.

Heagney then saw his resulting shot from two yards out hit the post and go out for a goal kick, leaving Barbas frustrated by his sides poor finishing in front of goal.

“We can’t take the mickey out of the game and we can’t make a joke of the opposition,” he said.

“We need to bury them and that’s what we didn’t do today, even though we scored five goals, we should have scored more.”

Heagney did however make amends for his miss with a brilliant goal that sailed over the keeper before striking the underside of the crossbar before crossing the line.

After a poor start to the season, Floreat find themselves having won three games in a row, which Barbas put down to his side finally being fully fit.

“We never struggled, we just didn’t have manpower, and now we’ve got our manpower and we’ve got players at the levels of fitness that they need to be it’s promising,” he said.

Floreat took the lead on 22 minutes when Cameron Yorke’s rifled shot on goal was saved, only to spill out to Adrian Caceres who tapped into an empty net.

After going 1-0 down Armadale went on to hold the ball for long periods of the first half, but failed to find the back of the net, leaving coach Lee Bamber frustrated after the game.

“Goals change games, we didn’t score, they scored,” he said. “We created chances, we just didn’t take them.”

Floreat’s second came from a Mark Pritchard penalty after a contentious handball decision, which left Bamber frustrated.

“I felt that the second half penalty decision was a terrible decision, it was never a penalty in a million years and it changed the game,” he said.

With his side conceding eight goals in the last two games, Bamber felt that his defence were in desperate need of injured former Blackburn Rovers defender Andy Todd, who will return next week.

Caceres sealed his double with a goal very similar to his first as goalkeeper Hawksworth fumbled again allowing Caceres to walk the ball into the net.

The final goal of the game came in the form of a tap-in from substitute Ian McMurray, allowing him to atone for his earlier missed effort from inside the six yard box.

Floreat Athena 5 (Caceres 22‘, 57’, Pritchard 53’, Heagney 73’, McMurray 87’)
Armadale SC 0
Ssturday 18th May 2013
E & D Litis Reserve
Kick -off: 3:00pm
Referee: Michal Jasinski
Assistant referees: Shuo Chen and Marcus Watts
Crowd: Appx 300

Floreat Athena: 1. Bradley EFFIE, 4. Spencer HARRIS, 5. Cameron YORKE, 6. Mark PRITCHARD, 9. David HEAGNEY, 10. Bobby WILSON (3. Jack ALLEN 61’), 11. Benny KOUAKOU, 12. Callum FRANSZ, 14. Ludovic BOI, 16. Mark WALSH (17. Mark BENNETT 78’), 18. Adrian CACERES (Ian McMURRAY 61’)

Substitutes not used: 99. Jordan BARBAS
Yellow cards: Yorke 31’ Fransz 66’
Red cards: Nil

Armadale SC: 1. Ellis HAWKSWORTH, 3. Trevor LAURE, 4. Ian MAGUIRE, 5. Nathan COSTELLO, 6. Christopher HOLLAND, 8. Llewellyn BAKE, 9. Darren FRANCIS, 10. Rhys LOXLEY (7. Raveshlan KUPPUSAMY 70’), 11. Mark PEERS, 13. Sam LOVELESS, 14. Mitchell CASTRILLI

Substitutes not used: 2. Jack BAMBER 17. Cyril SHARROCK
Yellow cards: Hawksworth 53’
Red cards: nil