Photo: Drazen Jurina
“May the best team win,” chimed Dandenong City coach Aaron Healey with an air of humility after his side were effectively knocked out of promotion contention following a 2-1 loss to Kingston City.
The result means Kingston and Dandenong Thunder will make up the top-two, barring a series of nigh on impossible permutations going the way of Healey’s men.
Their meeting on Saturday afternoon capped off the last match-up against the league’s frontrunners, which saw a return of one point from four games.
City’s solitary point against the top-two came in the form of a 1-1 draw with Dandenong Thunder, coming after a 4-0 thumping from the side earlier in the season; their form against Kingston saw them lose twice by just the solitary goal.
Having faced both sides twice, Healey admitted it was a difficult task to split the two sides, suggesting that fitness and injuries will play a large role in deciding who wins automatic promotion.
“I think on their day, they’re both very good teams and it’s hard to split them – there’s three points between them,” he said.
“It’s funny how the Eastern league is the way it is and the Western is the way it is. It’s going to come down to who they’ve got home and away, what games they’re going to play.
“Certainly it’ll be a war of attrition and who can adjust to injuries and stuff like that. I don’t like to say it but not having our skipper [John Carroll] for the last two weeks has hurt us, but that’s not an excuse for our performance.
“Say if Thunder were to lose a Colosimo, a Brandon Barnes, it makes a big difference when you’re coming up against quality opposition. Six games left, it’s going to be who can keep their squad the freshest as possible and then you’ve got the playoff game at the end so we’ll see what happens.”
Dandenong City v Kingston City from Dandenong City Soccer Club on Vimeo.
City provided stern opposition throughout the season as they waited patiently in the wings of both Thunder and Kingston.
Despite their opportunity to usurp the pair never eventuating, Healey admits there is still plenty to play for in their season, with the coach targeting further improvement heading into next season’s campaign.
“There’s still a lot to play for, we spoke a lot about that during the week and whether we want to be a team that just lets the season peter out or do we want to keep striving and keep improving our performances?
“The boys are pretty keen to do that, we’ve got 18 points to go for and scored more goals than we had at this time last year, conceded the same amount and got more points – we need to keep pushing and we’ll do that.
“The guys in the dressing room are a bit hurt today, they will be and they should be, but we still have plenty to play for and we’ll continue to do that.”
Dandenong City gifted two goals to their opposition at Frank Holohan Soccer Complex, with an own goal and penalty putting the visitors into a two-nil lead, before Healey’s charges rallied in the second half, which saw Gonzalo Freddi earn a late penalty, which captain on the day Dario Matkovic put away.
The equaliser never materialised, which prompted Healey to suggest the loss on the weekend was reflective of City’s season as a whole, believing his side went unrewarded for their efforts throughout the match.
“Results always are as they are but I think we were better than a 2-1 result today. We went unrewarded for our efforts, particularly in the second half,” he said.
“It’s tough when you go down to an own goal in the first minute, but to our credit, I think we decided to play a bit in the first half. In the second half, I think we had the better of the play. I said to the guys at half-time that they had two-three good chances in the first half – but I didn’t think we had good movement in the forward third, things broke down with that final pass in the first half.
“In the second half, again we shoot ourselves in the foot, but after that I thought that for the last half an hour we dominated the game and were unfortunate not to come away with at least a point. Possibly could have knicked it but it was just one of those games.
“I’ve said that consistently throughout the season and I think that’s the theme for this season, that we’ve shot ourselves in the foot and have gone unrewarded in games that we should have got more out of.”
It leaves Dandenong with plenty of food for thought going into their final six league fixtures, who will be striving to reward themselves with an improvement on last year’s 48 point return.