Image: Natasha Morello
With four goals in as many games to start the season, Alex Caniglia has wasted no time in settling in at his new club this season.
After impressive individual displays at now relegated Richmond, the crafty winger made the move to Green Gully during the summer and looks to be a superb acquisition after a stand-out month.
“It’s good coming to a more professional club,” Caniglia says of his move.
“We’ve got everything going on here, it’s a great step up here for me. I like to take my football seriously so this is good for me to get to a team that’s like this.”
Aiding Caniglia in the front third is another new face at Green Gully this season. After injury hampered a stint at A-League side Melbourne City, Wade Dekker has returned to the NPL and already looks to be playing a role in one of the fiercest attacking partnerships in the league.
“He’s got a great pedigree,” Caniglia says.
“Playing next to him is really good, he knows my runs and I’ve started to learn his runs. He’s always coming to the ball and I’m trying to feed off him and it’s managed to work the way it has. Just need to get a few more goals together and I’ll be happy.”
Both Caniglia and Dekker were on the score sheet on Friday night as Green Gully notched it’s second win of the season as a commanding second half display saw the visitors claim a 4-2 win over Port Melbourne.
“We finally managed to string a few passes together and really dominate the game and we ended up coming out 4-2 winners, it should’ve been a few more I think.”
“It wasn’t ideal copping two goals in the first half, we were lucky to get two back so the message at half time was to just control the tempo of the game, if we keep passes and keep possession of the ball and make them run they’ll start to tire and that’s exactly what happened.”
There has also been a change in personnel in the coaching staff early in the season, as Arthur Papas made the move in February to Saudia Arabian side Ettifaq FC.
Brian Vanega has since stepped into the role as head coach in the past two weeks, a move Caniglia says was supported by the players.
“Brian knows his stuff. He’s an experienced coach himself. He was the reserves coach so he knew the way that we play and everyone in the team wanted to keep playing the way we did so we actually agreed that we wanted Brian to be in charge of us,” he says.
Following on from a solid 2016 campaign which saw Gully finish 5th in the league while a tremendous cup run saw it reach the Dockerty Cup final as well as famously defeating A-League outfit Central Coast Mariners in the FFA Cup, silverware is the aim in 2017.
“The first couple of results didn’t go our way… but the idea is that we want to at least finish top two, we’ve got the quality and the players to do it and the way that the coaching staff and the club itself we’ve definitely got the potential for top four at least.”
Green Gully’s next match is a trip to Knights Stadium on Saturday to take on surprise ladder leader Avondale.