Photo: Smile for Peter
For Kingston City, performance took a back seat for two other factors in their game against Springvale White Eagles on Saturday afternoon, ones that usually sit on polar ends of the spectrum in professional football.
Coach Nick Tolios stressed the importance of the promotion chasers not only getting back on the winners list – they snapped a two-game losing streak with the 3-2 victory – but also to get back to basics and enjoy themselves on the park.
“[The win] was important, the key was to get back to winning ways and to do what we’ve been doing. The last two-three weeks, we’ve been to blame,” Tolios said.
“We’ve forgotten why it is we do this, and that’s to enjoy ourselves first and foremost. That’s probably because the boys have expectations on themselves and each other, and they put that pressure on themselves to try and do well.
“They know they have been disappointing and that’s probably why, but today I just told them to go out and enjoy it – that’s why we play these competitions, is to be with a bunch of mates to enjoy the 90 minutes you get on the weekend and have some fun.
“I think they did that in the first half, second half was a little bit disappointing but the three points is what we wanted.”
Save for the opening 15 minutes, where the White Eagles were on top of the contest, Kingston grew with confidence as the first half wore on, which saw them carry a 2-0 lead into the break courtesy of goals to Velibor Mitrovic and Rowan McNamee.
The second half saw them concede twice in quick succession, and with the game in the balance, could’ve easily fell to a hat-trick of defeats, were it not for a late header from Jerry Karpeh.
Tolios concedes that consistency has been a minor concern over the last fortnight from his young squad.
“[Consistency] probably has [been a concern] because we’re a young side,” he said.
“We haven’t got that many experienced players like a lot of the other teams do, we’ve got a lot of young boys through there, including the backline. But they’re inexcusable mistakes we made today.
“They’re two from set-pieces when we fell asleep, where we couldn’t clear our lines and that’s how we conceded. It’s one of those scrappy Sunday league games where you can’t clear your lines, the balls going everywhere. They’ve taken those chances and got back into the game.
“The boys we rotated a little bit today as the performance last week didn’t merit some of the boys starting today. The boys that came in, Rowan McNamee made his first start in a while, he scored and did really well. Ran out of legs a little bit but I thought he was clean all day and he gave us that extra spark upfront.
“We did what we worked on, get the ball wide early and get the ball in early. It was some great build up [to the winning goal], Velibor got it nice and early, great cross in and Jerry did what Jerry does, the man mountain.”
Their preceding fortnight had seen them slip away from runaway league leaders Dandenong Thunder, who opened up a six-point buffer at the top of the NPL2 East table, while third-placed Dandenong City have closed to within a reachable 10-points in the race for the final promotion play-off spot in the conference.
It’s a two-tier approach that Tolios has admitted should be keeping his charges on their toes – both chasing the Thunder, and breaking from City – but admits complacency may have set in over the past few weeks given what appeared to be the relative security of a top-two position.
“Things can change very quickly if you think that far ahead and that’s where complacency sets in.
“Whether our young boys might have been doing that the last couple of weeks, who knows, but for us the goal is the same.
“There is a lot of points for Dandy City to make up, but there’s a lot of points for us to make up on Dandy Thunder as well. They’re a good side too, one that puts sides away, and that’s where we’ve got to get to.
“We create enough chances to win a couple of games every week, it’s just getting that clinical finishing in front of goal that we’ve been lacking over the last few weeks. For today it was just about getting three points and I wasn’t really concerned.
“We’ll obviously address the mistakes that we made, but to get the boys up and about again is important.”