Heidelberg United coach George Katsakis was disappointed his side couldn’t hold onto their 2-1 lead after drawing with Werribee City, especially with South Melbourne dropping their first points of the season earlier in the week.
After Tommy Dunn’s error gifted Heidelberg the lead in the 52nd minute, a cross from Matthew Cundari found Domenico Marafioti at the back post, and the Werribee attacker needed no second invitation to equalise.
Katsakis was not pleased with the way his team defended for the goals they conceded, and also lamented the missed chances at the other end of the park.
“It’s disappointing. I was just saying to the boys we work hard defensively and we seem to concede some stupid goals,” Katsakis said.
“They’ve both come from our errors, obviously the first from a free-kick, we chased the short one; the second one where the balls come out of our free-kick offensively and we haven’t put it in the right spot and then on the counter, they’ve scored.
“In saying that, we’ve created so much. Les Doumbalis should’ve scored Dan Heffernan had a couple of chances, Kaino [Kaine Sheppard] had a chance.
“We’ve got to start taking our chances again and I think that’s where we’re sort of faltering. A month ago we were taking all our chances, scoring three or four every week, where as the last couple of weeks we’re not making the most of our chances.”
The point has edged them that little bit closer to runaway leaders South Melbourne, but while Katsakis would have liked to cut more points off the deficit, he couldn’t fault his side for their efforts.
“I think we need to be a little bit more aware and alert in terms of our defensive duty. Not to concede silly goals because it’s not as if they’ve earned them, it’s our silly errors that are allowing them to put them away,” he said.
“But I can’t take too much away from the boys, it’s eight weeks undefeated. Six wins and two draws in eight weeks, any coach would take that but ultimately had they been wins, it would have put us right in the mix, especially with South dropping the points.”
“There’s a whole round [of teams] and a game to go so I’m sure they’re going to get beat again.
“It’s a matter of capitalising when they do get beat, that’s the only thing.
“We haven’t done it in two weeks. We’ll go back on Tuesday and work on certain things and try and get a positive result at Dandenong next week, put us right back in the hunt. Go back down to Lakeside and then anything’s possible.”
Heidelberg still remain in third spot on the table, and it would be easy to forget the team were playing State League 1 football last season.
Katsakis is happy with how quickly his side have adapted to the new level, and took a moment to just reflect on how far they’ve come since their Round 1 loss to South Melbourne.
“You’ve got to see where we’ve come from to where we are at the moment,” he said.
“I think early on, we probably weren’t prepared enough and it probably came on a bit too quick for us. In the way we had structured our pre-season it wasn’t ultimately the way we would’ve liked to have started the season.
“I think I did [back at the start of the season], look out for us, we’ll come good.
“The last eight weeks have been phenomenal, the last two months. Three eight’s are 24 and I think we’ve gotten 20 of those points so I cant ask for more, the boys have been exceptional.”