By Adem Barolli (@adembarolli) 

During a cold and foggy affair in Shepparton on Saturday night, the Goulburn Valley Suns and Melbourne Knights were forced to share the points in an intriguing 1-1 draw.

Melbourne Knights managed to open the scoring in the 37thminute through an own goal from Ardian Vuniqi, after the GV Suns midfielder found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, tapping the ball into his own net.

Prior to the goal Daniel Visevic’s fine strike resulted in an excellent save from Philip Petrovski, forcing the corner for Knights. 

Although in the second half it was the super sub in Tom Langman who capitalised for the GV Suns to make things all square at McEwen Reserve. 

Langman’s left footed strike deflected off Kovacic and managed to loop over a stranded Christopher May and into the onion bag, adding extra life to the bottom-placed GV Suns.

With only minutes remaining it looked as if the Suns may have made it two wins on the trot. 

Although a very contentious decision ruled Zachary Foxhoven offside after he finished neatly past ‘keeper May in goal for Knights.

For the majority of the game both sides created plenty of chances and in particular Jordan O’Doherty, the former Adelaide United youth winger spurned two great chances in a matter of minutes. 

The latter of the two chances saw O’Doherty shoot over the cross bar from just six yards out, while he scuffed his first shot into the ground.

In addition to O’Doherty, former Suns player Stipo Andrijasevic failed to convert a glorious one-on-one opportunity spraying his shot wide of the upright late on. 

On the other hand, from the most unlikely of sources, the Suns almost managed to grab an equaliser before Langman’s goal when Simon Colosimo attempted an outrageous shot.  

In true Beckham-esque fashion Colosimo spotted May of his line and decided to test his fate from half way only to see his strike ricochet off the crossbar. 

As the whistle blew and the points were split between the two. 

GV Suns coach David Davkovski was pretty happy with his side’s performance although he was disappointed with the linesman call on Foxhoven late in the game.

“It is what it is, I don’t think it was offside… but what I said to the boys is the way we created these chances is super, we’re creating these chances, we’re not locking it in, we’re not being negative as long as we’re creating chances I’m happy,” Davkovski said.  

Meanwhile Melbourne Knights coach Andrew Marth was surprised with how the Suns performed although he thought that the Knights should’ve scored more as well.

“I thought it was ok, we missed a few opportunities, we should have had them buried early on and we almost paid the ultimate price,” Marth said. 

“You’ve got to give them (GV Suns) credit, they’re a lot better then what I expected them to be… they gave us a good game.”

Meanwhile the GV Suns will play Bentleigh next, while the Knights are off to Queensland in mid-week to face Olympic FC in the Westfield FFA Cup. 

MATCH DETAILS

Goulburn Valley Suns 1 (Langman 70’) drew with Melbourne Knights (Vuniqi 38’) at McEwen Reserve in Shepparton. [HT: 0-1]

Goulburn Valley Suns: 1. Phillip PETROVSKI, 2. Cody SELLWOOD, 3. Naum SEKULOVSKI, 4. Simon COLOSIMO, 5. Riley HAMILTON, 7. Ben CLARKE, 8. Daniel CHAABANI (13. Zachary PARASKEVAS), 10. Bryan VANEGA, 11. Ardian VUNIQI (9. Tom LANGMAN), 16. Frank LAGANA, 17. Zachary FOXHOVEN

Unused substitutions: 14. Rossi LAGANA, 18. Joey HOGARTY, 22. Jake KEATING

Yellow cards: None

Red cards: None 

Melbourne Knights: 1. Christopher MAY, 3. Samuel TORRENS, 5. Milan BATUR, 6. Tomislav USKOK, 7. Daniel VISEVIC, 9. Stipo ANDRIJASEVIC, 10. Daniel CVITKOVIC (8. Leo ANTHANASIOU), 11. Jordan O’DOHERTY, 13. Antun KOVACIC, 14. Michael Doyle, 19. Shayan ALINEJAD 

Unused substitutions: 2. Michael SIMMS, 12. Ivan GRGIC, 18. Nikola SRBINOVSKI, 25. Michael O’FARRELL

Yellow cards: None

Red cards: None

Image credit: Bing Archibald, Melbourne Knights FC