Bentleigh Greens coach John Anastasiadis was disappointed not to walk away from Lakeside Stadium with three points saying Bentleigh only have themselves to blame after failing to convert two penalties. Sunday afternoon’s matchup pitted the top two NPL Victoria teams against each other in what could be a preview of this year’s NPL Grand Final with a victory giving the winner top spot on the ladder.
The Greens failed to capitalise from the penalty spot on two occasions but despite the loss, Anastasiadis was proud of the resilience his side showed after going down to ten men in the second half, saying the Greens “were so far ahead of South Melbourne as a football team it’s just not funny”.
Bentleigh Greens drew first blood when midfield maestro Wayne Wallace netted for the Greens in the 21st minute before South’s Kristian Konstantinidis equalised for the home side on the stroke of half time – heading home from a Brad Norton free-kick.
Adding insult to injury, Dion Kirk was given his marching orders in the 53rd minute after collecting a second yellow and just minutes later, a clinical Matthew Theodore slotted the ball home to put South Melbourne 2-1 up.
A penalty was awarded to the Greens but a solid Nikola Roganovic stood tall to deny Chris Lucas an equalising goal.
Bentleigh was awarded yet another penalty in the closing moments of the clash but it was Roganovic again who would ensure Bentleigh would walk away from Lakeside Stadium empty handed with a brilliant, well-timed save denied Troy Ruthven.
A match in which a player was sent off and two penalty decisions awarded was always going to be controversial and as expected, the Bentleigh coach was not too happy with some of the decisions made, saying the officiating took centre stage on a day where the top two sides in the competition facing off against each other should have been the focus.
“It is so frustrating, it’s probably the most disappointing game I’ve ever had in my career as a coach,” Anastasiadis said.
“I just cannot understand some of the decisions by the officials – I’m not here to bag anyone or to really have a go at officials, they have a hard job in doing what they’re doing but I thought today was a poor performance and we cant have officials being the protagonist of a game.
“There are 22 players out there and they should be the people who are taking the glory … unfortunately in this game that wasn’t the case,” he added.
The Greens failed to capitalise on their chances and would have walked away with the three points but they were unlucky.
An unlucky Greens side played an entertaining style of attacking football, creating a number of goal opportunities but a failure to convert those chances into goals was ultimately what gave Bentleigh its second loss of the season.
Bentleigh’s recent run of results is a stark contrast to the 2015 season with two losses and one draw after seven rounds of action – for comparison, last year the Greens were only defeated twice throughout the whole season.
A win would have put John Anastasiadis’ men clear at the top of the NPL ladder and sent a message to the rest of the competition but the Bentleigh coach insists his side will move on from the defeat and focus on chalking up another three points next round.
“We are absolutely devastated but we move on quickly,” said Anastasiadis.
“We’ve got a quick turnaround this week and we’ve got a tough game against Knights – [We] just got to get over it, simple as that.
“We’ll go through the positives of the game and hopefully build on those positives – we weren’t good enough today so you got to swallow it and just pump into the boys, let them know that it’s one of those games that got away from us and that we hope it doesn’t happen again.”
Image: Con Deves