By Brad Worrall

MURRAY United has pulled off the upset of the year and may have denied Saint Albans any chance of promotion at the La Trobe ground in Wodonga today.

Down 1-0 with just a minute of regular time left on the clock Zac Walker finally levelled the scores and then when a handball went against the visitors on 92 minutes, keeper Stuart Webster’s protests were silenced as United’s Sean Pye fired into an open net.

The PS4 NPL1 western conference third-placed Saints had looked set to put a horror month behind it when a low cross from Nick Scerri found the head of Barry Devlin on 21 minutes.

It was a lead that could have been doubled twice in the 38th minute but for the heroics of United keeper Nathan Brown, pushing a shot from Tedros Yabio wide and then making a reflex save off a Ryan McGuffie header from the ensuing corner.

The Saints took a 1-0 lead to the break but the addition of Adam Waters for United changed the game entirely – his pace stretching the visitors and dragging Walker and Ash Dunn closer to goal.

Walker had looked to have levelled the scores on 53 minutes only to be ruled off side, while failing to capitalise on several other chances in the dying minutes.

Even Dunn was guilty of squandering a chance in front of goal that he would normally have buried.

At the other end of the park it was the ever present Scerri who threatened to kill the game with shots in the 76th and 79th minutes off left and right feet - once to be denied by Brown and the second time by the side netting.

Caretaker United coach James Coutts said it was a win built on hard work.

“We have had two weeks on the park just working to get ourselves fitter – we have lost so many games this year in that last 15 minutes when players begin to fatigue and make the wrong decision,” Coutts said.

“But I thought today was one of our most complete performances of the year – even in the first half we were very good on the ball and given how many chances came our way at the end we would have been disappointed not to have come away with at least a point.

“The boys have been rewarded for all their hard work.

“Waters pace exposed them at the back and I thought Alex Eggleston in his first start in seniors was outstanding as well – to have had so many chances and to be still down 1-0 was hard to take and we just kept saying to the boys to keep in the game, keep pushing and for a change we were rewarded.”

Match Details 

MURRAY UNITED 2 (Walker 89’, Pye 92’) def SAINT ALBANS 1 (Devlin 21’) 

La Trobe University Ground, Wodonga

Yellow cards: 

Ash Dunn, Ryan Giles, Melkie Woldemichael; Murray United

Stewart Webster; Saint Albans

ST ALBANS: 1. S Webster 2. R McGuffie 3. N Otuo-Acheampong 4. N Sarbin 5. T Yabio 9. B Devlin 11. N Scerri. 13. A Boras 15. K Dobraszkeiwicz (17. S Trbuhovic 68’) 18. B Shaper 19. G Niceski (20. A Kozul 60’)

MURRAY UNITED: 1. N Brown 11. J Ferguson 16. S Pye 12. M Jessup (36 S Ellwood 82’) 23. B Chaffey 5 A Dunn 15. R Giles 37. A Eggleston 29. (9. M Hasler 72’) D Pawlik (14. A Waters 45’) 17. M Woldemichael 7. Z Walker