NJL Match Report: Essendon Royals rue missed chances against Spring Hills Stallions
The Essendon Royals were dealt a harsh lesson in the importance of taking your chances on Sunday night as they lost to Spring Hills Stallions 3-1.
The Royals enjoyed the majority of possession and chances but failed to make those chances count on a cool evening at Cross Keys Reserve.
The Stallions had three good looks at goal and converted all of them courtesy of it was goals from Alina Zahovic, Isabella Dimoska, and Dayna Stevens in a second-half where the visitors showed ruthless efficiency in the final third.
The Royals’ consolation came through Mary Hubeek, who did level the scores at 1-1, on a night it just wasn’t to be for the home side.
Outside of picking the ball out of her net, it was a relatively quiet evening for Beth Mason-Jones, the same which could not be said for Stallions keeper Jenna Ibrahim.
The Royals made a nervy start to the game but managed to fire the first shot after just three minutes via Hubeek.
Spring Hills responded with a strike from distance of their own in the seventh minute and had their first good opportunity when they had a free header on goal from a corner that couldn’t find the target.
After conceding two chances, the Royals snapped into gear and took control of the game with the chances beginning to flow.
Hubeek forced Ibrahim into her first meaningful save in the 14th minute, capping off a good team move.
In the 18th minute, some lovely one-on-one play from Rachel Alonso created a great crossing opportunity and her ball only just evaded Linda Sawa at the far post.
Ten minutes later, Ibrahim pulled off the save of the game, somehow denying Sawa from another brilliant cross from Alonso.
Alonso’s ball seemed to have beat Ibrahim leaving Sawa with a glorious opportunity, but whilst the striker made decent contact, Ibrahim showed cat-like reflexes to sprawl across her goal and deny the Royals.
Ibrahim was beaten from the resulting corner, but she was saved by the post as Sawa saw yet another chance denied before Spring Hills scrambled the ball away for another corner.
Ibrahim was in action once again to deny a shot on target from the corner.
Spring Hills collected themselves defensively after conceding a flurry of chances and managed to see out the half without any further scares, save for some long-range shooting from Alonso.
The Stallions did survive a decent penalty shout for what looked like a foul on Alonso in the 42nd minute. The referee seemed to move his whistle to his mouth to blow for the foul before deciding otherwise.
With the scores locked at 0-0 going into the break, the Royals could only hope they would not go onto regret not scoring in the opening 45 minutes.
As play resumed for the second half, the Stallions punished the home side’s failure to find the back of the net, pouncing on a number of defensive errors to turn the Royals defense inside out and score with a fine finish from Zahovic in the 47th minute.
Spring Hills hit the bar in the 51st minute as the shell-shocked Royals looked to get back into the game.
Alonso won and took a free-kick from just outside the box in the 59th minute, with her set-piece effort forcing a decent save from Ibrahim.
Hubeek leveled the scores in the 61st minute, reacting quickest to a spilled ball at a corner-kick and thrashing home a delightful finish.
Spurred on by the equalizer, the Royals committed numbers forward with the incessant running from Marie Rampal creating numerous crossing opportunities, but none that resulted in great looks at goal.
The Royals were piling on the pressure when the Stallions landed the ultimate sucker punch in the 83rd minute, scoring on the break via Dimoska to make it 2-1.
With the Royals scrambling for an equalizer, the Stallions landed a killer blow via Stevens, who made no mistake to finish the home side off.
In the end, it was a frustrating night for the Royals, who will be disappointed not to have done more with their big periods of sustained pressure.
However, they will take some satisfaction from the manner of play against one of the best sides in the Women’s State League 1 North-West competition and will strive for a better execution at both ends of the pitch next Friday night against Moreland Zebras.
In the earlier kick-off the Royals ran out 3-1 winners over Spring Hills to make it two wins from two.
Kiana Kyriazis continued her fine form in goal, adding two more to the four she scored last week, whilst Ivana Ovcaric was also on the scoresheet.