Victorious coach Chris Taylor has praised his South Melbourne charges for their ability to win the “moments” in their 6-0 rout of Heidelberg United on Sunday night.
While the eventual scoreline may not have been reflective of the balance of play between the two sides, it certainly was reflective of how clinical South looked going forward.
“I always coach for moments, and the moments in the game went for us today,” Taylor said.
“Every time we went forward, it looked like we were going to score – that was quite clinical. It’s something we’ve been working on throughout pre-season and it’s just clicked for us today to obviously get the points.”
“Regardless of the result, three points is always what you’re after. It worked out better than what we expected – half-time 4-0 up playing against 10 men, I think the game was pretty much over by then.
“They’re not a bad side, don’t get me wrong but it’s just one of those that clicked for us tonight. Plenty have written us off, not having strikers right throughout pre-season, but we showed today that we’re still a reasonable side.”
The opening stages saw the two sides arm wrestle for ascendency, before Nick Epifano hit the hosts into the lead in the 12th minute.
Even after that, the contest remained a tight affair until the floodgates opened in the final ten minutes of the opening half.
Nikola Roganovic had a good game throughout the tie, but Taylor was adamant there was little to worry about, with the coach believing his opponents didn’t create too many clear-cut opportunities.
MATCH REPORT > South stun Bergers with six goal mauling
“I wasn’t too concerned, I didn’t think they had too many chances,” Taylor said.
“They were dangerous on set-plays, they had several corners, but I think we sat too deep. It’s been one of the errors we’ve tried to rectify but I wouldn’t say Heidelberg had any clear-cut chances.
“I thought we defended quite well but didn’t get our structure right for that opening 15 minute period.”
With Matt Millar, Marcus Schroen and Matthew Foschini all debuting for the club, the former in particular having an impressive game, Taylor has praised the strength in depth of his squad, which saw players of the ilk of Leigh Minopoulos, Amadu Koroma, Chris Irwin and new international Philzgerald Mbaka all out of the match day squad, while Kristian Konstantinidis didn’t appear off the bench in the mammoth win.
“I think we’ve got good depth but you can’t predict what’s going to happen. Last year we played a game with seven players out – you don’t get horrific runs like that but what we seem to have is a well balanced squad that we can rotate a bit.
“It’s testament to the members that we’ve signed and the strength of the squad. It’s a hard season – we played 36-37 games last season – and if it ends up the same way, we’ll need all the numbers we can get.”
With Melbourne City playing the Central Coast Mariners at the same time as the NPL clash, Taylor concluded by adding fuel to the promotion/relegation fire by comparing the support at Lakeside to that of most A-League sides.
“Obviously being at home for the first game of the season [we wanted to perform for the crowd]. We’ve got the best supporters – and I’m not saying outside of the A-League as I think we’re better supporters than most of the league – but it’s good to put on a good performance for them and keep them coming back and wanting to watch us every week.”
“I didn’t even realise there was an A-League game on, that’s how little interest I took. It’s great for us, we had a great crowd today and it just shows that the NPL is alive and well. The sooner we get promotion/relegation, the better it will be.”
In injury news, Matthew Foschini – substituted at half-time – was taken to hospital to assess a suspected concussion sustained in a clash from a set-piece.