Nicholas James Lawyers Match Report: Winning Run Halts in Flat Night at Keilor Park
Some Friday nights at the football promise fireworks. Others promise a slow burn that never quite catches. This was the latter kind. A cold evening at Keilor Park Recreation Reserve, and a game that drifted along until one moment of transition decided it.
Our four-game winning run ends here, and there is no point dressing it up. We did not do enough.
The first real chance of the night belonged to us. Anthony Trajkoski beat his man down our right with a lovely bit of work, dug out a delicious cross, and Prince Jordan Adeyemi got there first, but couldn’t connect cleanly, sending his effort wide of the post.
Phil Riccobene and Graham Kelly, the former Royal, went at each other in the middle of the park in a properly physical scrap. Neither side could stamp authority on the contest. Half time arrived with the scoreboard still unblemished, and a feeling that whoever found a moment first would probably take the points.
That moment arrived eleven minutes into the second half, and it stung all the more because it started with an Essendon corner. Delivery to the near post, no Royal there to attack it, the first man cleared. Twenty seconds later the ball was nestled in our net.
Ryouta Yanagisono, on at the break for Keilor Park, finished it off via a deflection. A grubby goal in a grubby game. The kind of strike that leaves you scratching your head about how quickly things turned, and how unprepared we looked when the ball came back the other way.
Anthony Trajkoski went into the book moments later. Frustration creeping in.
Marcus Kotronis, on as a sub, gave us our best moment to drag it back. Right on the byline, he hooked a cross back into the box and a Keilor Park defender threw his hands up. Furious appeals for a handball fell on deaf ears.
The corner that followed was probably the cleanest delivery of the night. A scramble in the six-yard box, and to Keilor Park’s credit, they got their bodies in the way and cleared their lines. That was as close as Essendon came.
Captain Dean Clarke kept us ticking, Vince Lia worked the channels, Bradley Norton put in his usual shift, but the final third was a desert. Andre Russo barely had a save to make. It was that kind of night for a goalkeeper.
A draw might have been the fairer result. But football does not deal in fair, and we have to wear this one. Our recent run had us climbing with belief, and an off night at Keilor Park is the reminder that nothing is ever banked in this league.
The Royals stay fifth on the table. We brush ourselves off. Round 13 next.
Up the Royals.