NJL Match Report: Ruthless Royals come back in style to defeat Redbacks in Australia Cup
Essendon Royals secured progression to the sixth round of Victorian qualifiers in the Australia Cup with a huge 4-2 win over Eltham Redbacks.
The Royals conspired against themselves to give the Redbacks a massive two-goal advantage after just 18 minutes but roared back into action with a massive effort to score four goals in response.
The #MagicOfTheCup was on full display at Cross Keys Reserve on a night that featured six goals and a penalty, but the quality of the Royals proved too much for the Redbacks in the end, with the Royals goals coming courtesy of a Jack Soklevski own goal, Graham Kelly, Nobu Usui and Josh Markovski.
Coach Mick Ferrante was forced into a number of changes, with playing assistant coach Davey Van’t Schip away on personal leave and James Brown having departed the club midweek.
Ferrante handed Ziyad El-Tahir his second start in the Australia Cup in as many games and the youngster did not disappoint in an all-action display, whilst Jake Montagnese played a fantastic game in the middle of the park with captain Matteo Ballan given a well-deserved rest.
Whilst the game ended in a dream finish for the Royals, they had to overcome a nightmare start.
The Redbacks started brightly, with the Royals seemingly asleep at the wheel.
Within the opening 120 seconds, the Redbacks had forced Royals keeper German Schacht into a decent save and headed over from the resulting corner despite being completely unmarked.
Luca Santilli did have the ball in the back of the net for the Royals after eight minutes but was judged to have fouled his marker as he climbed high to get his head on a delightful Ryan McEvoy free-kick.
The Redbacks took a deserved lead after 12 minutes when a dangerous cross from Domenic Marafioti was inadvertently turned into his own net by young defender Jack Warrick.
Six minutes later the referee awarded a penalty to the Redbacks when another dangerous ball from Marafioti struck Kristian Konstatinidis on the arm from close range. There was little KK could do but the referee was left with little choice but to award the spot-kick, which was expertly dispatched by Lee Mottershead.
Whilst Ferrante will be disappointed it took a two-goal headstart to fire his boys into action, he can take some pleasure from the quality of the response.
From the moment the Royals went 2-0 down they wrestled the ascendency away from Eltham and began to assert their dominance in the game.
The Royals clawed their first goal back after 22 minutes when another beautiful McEvoy set-piece was headed into his own net by Soklevski, with El-Tahir applying the crucial pressure at the contest.
Two minutes later, El-Tahir demonstrated superb hold-up play and played Usui into a dangerous position but the Japanese winger saw his shot well blocked.
As the game hit the half-hour mark, the Royals had a series of corners which eventually ended with a Kelly strike from range that went just wide.
Another set-piece opportunity in the 32nd minute saw Kelly shave the crossbar with a decent effort before the Redbacks closed out the half with the last good chance of the opening 45 with yet another free header from a corner.
The Royals came out fired up for the second half with Markovski coming on to replace Santilli, and the Royals’ intense pressing game paid dividends instantly, when the Royals pushed high up the field from the Eltham kick-off, forcing a turnover between the centrebacks.
Kelly intercepted the careless pass and drove at goal, making no mistake with his finish to level the scores not even 20 seconds into the second half.
Half-time sub Markovski gave a glimpse of things to come with a lovely run on the hour mark but couldn’t find the finish to match.
McEvoy had a chance of his own in the 63rd minute when he tried to finish off a lovely Royals attack with a dinked finish that was too high.
Thankfully, the Royals didn’t have to wait too long for the go-ahead goal, which came courtesy of Usui’s first goal for his new club.
Under immense pressure from the Royals, the Redbacks failed to clear a high ball, giving El-Tahir a sniff to get his foot on the ball and hold off a swag of Eltham defender. He wriggled the ball to Kelly, who slipped it to Usui and the import winger took care of the rest, skipping past his markers and unleashing a fierce strike into the bottom corner.
Markovski made it 4-2 when he picked up the ball on the left wing, cut inside and skipped past three challenges before striking home from just outside the box.
Paul Montalto came off the bench in the 90th minute and had a great chance to put the Royals 5-2 up in stoppage time, but just failed to find the finish in an otherwise encouraging cameo from the youngster.
Despite the rocky start, the Royals were deserved winners on the night and have placed their name in the hat for the next round of the Australia Cup.
Attention now turns to Saturday night’s league match away to Altona City.