By Tonci Prusac (@tonciprusac)

St Albans Saints recorded an emphatic 4-0 victory over a disappointing Dandenong City in their NPL1 Round 25 clash at Churchill Reserve on Sunday afternoon.

Captain Ryan McGuffrie and Ross Harvey scored one apiece in the opening half, with Teddy Yabio and Sean McIlroy adding to the goal fest in the second period.

With one eye firmly focussed on Tuesday night's glamour FFA Cup Round of 16 tie against the Perth Glory at Knights Stadium, one could be forgiven for expecting the home side to take it easy against its sister club in a game that meant little to either side.

That could not have been further from the truth, as it was all the Saints in the opening stanza.

St Albans opened the scoring in the 14th minute, after a delightfully taken free kick by Ross Harvey found an unmarked Ryan McGuffie, and the captain coolly headed past Dandenong 'keeper Marko Stevanja.

Ten minutes later, the Blues once again hit the back of the net, this time through livewire attacker Teddy Yabio, but his goal was disallowed for offside.

Nonetheless, the Saints once again found themselves on the score sheet in the 37th minute, when McGuffie took a free kick from well outside the penalty box. 

He laid it off for Harvey, whose long-range effort skidded along the bumpy surface and evaded an outstretched Stevanja to double the home side's lead.

Saints striker, Sean McIlroy, had a gilt edged opportunity in the dying seconds of the first half to make it 3-0, after Nicholas Cullen floated in a perfect, long ball into the box. 

The unmarked McIlroy had just Stevanja to beat, but his headed effort was tipped wide of the post to safety by the young Dandenong shot stopper.

It didn’t take long for the Saints to reassert their dominance in the second half. 

Just six minutes after the resumption of play, Yabio trapped the ball just outside the box, turned elegantly, shook off his defender and glided into open space. 

He found himself in a one-on-one situation with Stevanja and calmly slotted past the hapless Dandenong ‘keeper. 

Less than two minutes later, McIlroy had his name on the scoresheet when he ran onto a delightfully-weighted through ball and coolly guided the ball past the hapless Stevanja for the Saints’ fourth of the afternoon.

The rest of the half was a case of both sides just going through the motions, before the referee blew the whistle to signify the end of proceedings.

After the game, St Albans coach Ryan McGuffie kept his players on the park for another 15 minutes.

“It was a gorgeous day and we needed to do our cooldown so what better place than out in the middle,” McGuffie said.

Asked if it had been difficult for his players to keep their concentration on today’s match ahead of Tuesday’s historic showdown with the Glory, McGuffie was rather ‘matter of fact’.

“All I can say is that the boys went out there and delivered what was asked of them. I told them not to pull out of any tackles, because it’s in those situations that you most likely to get injured,” he said.

“That was the key for us, not to have anyone injured ahead of Tuesday night. Thankfully, that was the case and we now focus on Tuesday night’s game with Glory.”

Dandenong City coach and a former playing legend at St Albans Saints, Ivan Duzel, was extremely disappointed about his team’s performance.

“Disappointing, disappointing, disappointing,” Duzel sighed, not wanting to say too much more.

“We conceded the first goal through a defensive error and we never really recovered. After that, we just couldn’t get back into it. Very disappointing.”

Following on from Tuesday night’s FFA Cup clash with Perth Glory, St Albans wraps up its league commitments next Sunday with an away clash to Box Hill United, while Dandenong City is away to Richmond.

MATCH RESULTS:

NPL1 Round 25: St Albans Saints 4 (McGuffrie 14’, Harvey 36’, Yabio 51’, McIlroy 53’) defeated Dandenong City 0 (HT 2:0) at Churchill Reserve 

St Albans: 1 Stuart WEBSTER, 2 Ryan McGUFFIE (12 Nyok CHOL 71’), 4 Barry DEVLIN (16 Ajak PANEK 55’), 8 Ross HARVEY, 14 Christopher ROSS, 15 Konrad DOBRASZKIEWICZ, 17 Adam NAKIC, 18 Tedros YABIO, 5 Felix ROSMAN, 9 Sean McILROY, 13 Nicholas CULLEN (19 Ante KOZUL 61’).

Subs not used: 21 Tonio BARESIC, 11 Yusef YUSEF.

Yellow cards: None

Red cards: None 

Dandenong City: 6 John CARROLL, 9 Damian MISKULIN, 19 Nicholas GLAVAN, 12 Shawn FILIPOVIC, 1 Marko STEVANJA, 8 Dario MATKOVIC, 10 Sean SEAVILL, 4 Karim EL HILALI (15 Graham HILL 61’), 3 Halil GUR, 5 Alex ROTAS (14 Anthony MIJAC 46’), Danijel BUHIC (11 Joseph SIEH 45’)

Subs not used: 31 Kirby ZIADA, 7 Keegan ZIADA.

Yellow cards: None

Red cards: None

Image credit: Roberto Filitti