By Matthew Conversano

Moreland Zebras trounced Brunswick City on Saturday afternoon as the visitors put five goals past the bottom placed side in a dominant, one sided display.

With four goals coming within the first half hour of play thanks to respective braces from Josh McMonagle-Ihasz and James Papadimitriou, Simon Symeoy capped off the 5-0 win right at the death.

Moreland outlined their intent right from the get go as it took them all of three minutes to muster up their first chance on goal, with James Kelly’s dipping strike flying over the bar.

Zebras took the lead just one minute later as a low corner from Baggio Yousif found McMonagle-Ihasz at the near post who’s volley hit the roof of the net.

Danny Charalambous seemed to have put the visitors 2-0 up just four minutes later when he headed the ball home.

The striker was ruled offside despite seemingly being on the receiving end of a wayward Brunswick City pass, causing a few raised eyebrows amongst the Moreland faithful.

However the disallowed goal was quickly forgotten as Moreland doubled their lead on the 11th minute mark with a cheeky look-away through ball from Charalambous allowing Papadimitriou to slam the ball into the bottom left corner of the net.

The second goal seemingly opened the floodgates for Moreland as they piled on another goal five minutes later as a perfect cross from Yousif found the gap between ‘keeper and centre half leaving Papadimitriou with the simplest of tap ins at the back post.

Zebras added a fourth before the half hour mark as McMonagle-Ihasz capitalized on a loose ball in the box, firing home a left footed volley underneath the body of hapless Brunswick custodian Jake Crea and into the net for his second of the afternoon.

Brunswick’s only chance for the first half almost lead to a goal as Dimitri Vithoulkas sent a volley dipping just over the bar on 38 minutes.

Yousif looked as though he made it five before half time for the visitors as he found the net on the 45th minute mark.

However Moreland’s celebrations were halted by the raised flag of the referee’s assistant for the second time of the afternoon.

With the game very much dead and buried by half time, the second half was far from a testament to free flowing football.

Having taken 20 minutes for either side to achieve a strike on goal, Brunswick frontman Ahmet Turer hustled and bustled his way into the box let loose a shot at goal.

However his shot was smothered well by Moreland custodian Nikola Kostadinovski.

The fifth and final goal of the afternoon fell to Simon Symeoy as Yousif completed his “hat-trick” of assists with a pin point cross right onto the head of the full back who found the net with a looping header with what was the last action of the match.


Match Details

Brunswick City 0 defeated by Moreland Zebras 5 (McMonagle-Ihasz 5’, 30’, Papadimitriou 11’, 16’, Symeoy 90+2’) at Dunstan Reserve, Brunswick

Brunswick City: 15. Jake CREA (GK), 45. Frank SERRATORE, 17. Evan KARAVITIS, 48. Nick TZOULIS ( 8. George MARKELIS 70’), 50. Resit CULCULOGLU, 10. Juan PORTILLO (27. Ab-diqafar URUSHE 74’), 35. Anthony IANCHELLO, 63. Duglas MENDEZ, 3. Michael VARKO-POULOS (49 Peter COSTANTINOU 58’), 9. Ahmet TURER, 00. Dimitri VITHOULKAS

Unused Subs:1. Christy BENNETT-SPARK

Yellow Cards: Culculoglu27’

Red Cards: None

Moreland Zebras:  1. Nikola KOSTADINOVSKI, 2. Simon SYMEOY, 5. Daniel PETROV, 8. Joshua McMONAGLE-IHASZ (23. Josh BERRIOS 73’), 10. Danny CHARALAMBOUS (24. Josh SABIDUSSI 55’), 11. Baggio YOUSIF, 12. Bradley MURRAY, 13. Lucas RUFFINO ( 3. Johnny CRIVELLI 83’), 14. James PAPADIMITRIOU, 16. Mile MEDJEDOVIC, 19. James KELLY.

Unused Subs: 21. Francesco GRECO, 15. William NUTTALL.

Yellow Cards: Nil

Red Cards: Nil