By Brad Hutchings (@BradHutchings_)

Sunshine George Cross has put an end to a run of four winless games thanks to a 4-2 victory over Brunswick City at Dunstan Reserve on Saturday.

Two goals in each half did the business for the travelling Sunshine, leaving Brunswick still in search of its second win of the season.

Despite leading all day, Sunshine still had to work hard for the win with Brunswick still in the contest for much of the afternoon.

But just like too many times this season, the home side lacked composure when it needed it most.
Sunshine came out of the blocks firing and threatened to score early on more than one occasion.

Brunswick at times couldn’t handle the attack produced by Sunshine and was lucky not to concede in the opening 10 minutes.

Sunshine’s attacking players were guilty of squandering numerous opportunities with shots on goal blocked by defenders.

Despite seeing very little of the ball, Brunswick almost opened the scoring in the 15th minute when new signing Rikiya Kitami hit the crossbar after Sunshine goalkeeper Lucas Spinella misjudged a long ball to leave his goal open.

That scare sparked Sunshine into life as it went from one end of the field to the other immediately after that to open the scoring.

It was another goalkeeping mistake which led to Nick Marinos opening his account for his new side, as he tapped into an empty net from a Manuell Sadik cross.

Sunshine thought it had a second on 26 minutes as Chris Oghanna’s goal-bound strike was brilliantly saved by Mason Interlandi.

Sunshine finally extended its lead five minutes before the break when Tom Reilly rose highest from a corner to head home and give the visitors an advantage their dominance deserved.

The two-goal buffer didn’t last long however, when Lachlan Smale scored for Brunswick just three minutes later.

The crossbar was again on hand to deny the home side a goal, but Smale was on guard to tap home the rebound.

The second half was a dire affair with Sunshine content to sit on its narrow advantage.

Anthony Cassar had Sunshine cruising to a win when he scored in the 52nd minute before captain Eddie Cetkin put the result out of Brunswick’s reach in the 80th minute with a rare goal from the defender.

Baggio Yousif raised hopes of an unlikely Brunswick comeback when he scored five minutes from full time, but it proved little more than a consolation goal as Sunshine successfully ran the clock down. 

Sunshine manager Renato Liberto was pleased to get the win after what had been a challenging period of late for his side.

“It was a good win after three losses in a row and all the injuries and suspensions we’ve had, a good deserved win, good performance, good football all round. Pretty happy to get off the losing bandwagon,” Liberto said.

“I’m very comfortable with the way the boys played, good football, that’s important.

“I think we copped a couple of silly goals but I will take the three points, a deserved win.”
Brunswick City assistant coach Theo Markelis bemoaned his side’s lack of confidence.

“It’s always a disappointing result when we lose. I thought in the first half we could have got a result out of it, but I think the other team was physically stronger, that’s something we’ve got to work on ourselves. We’ve got a good squad, we just have to learn how to play together,” Markelis said.

“As soon as they scored a goal we ended up losing our confidence which is something our boys have to learn to do.”

MATCH DETAILS

Brunswick City 2 (Smale 43’, Yousif 88’) defeated by Sunshine George Cross 4 (Marinos 16’, Reilly 40’, Cassar 52’ 80’) at Dunstan Reserve. [HT:1-2]

Brunswick City: Mason Interlandi, Seamus Carr (George Markelis 70’), George McHaileh, Denis Sadik, Rikiya Kitami, Lachlan Smale, Michael Varkopoulos (Matt Tancevski65’), Dimitri Vithloulkas, Manny Karas (Oktay Oztekin 86’), Simon Stankovski, Baggio Yousif

Unused subs: Admir Kolakovic, Rojdar Zengin.

Yellow cards: Carr (27’)

Red cards: Nil

Sunshine George Cross: Lucas Spinella, Jacob Attard (Chris Suteta 57’), Eddie Cetkin, Tom Reilly, Matt Oghanna, Adrian Logozzo, Damian Rastocic (James Xydias 81’), Chris Oghanna, Nick Marinos (Lewis Shannon 53’), Manuell Sadik, Anthony Cassar

Unused subs: Anthony Murana, Abdelgabbar Abdelgabbar. 

Yellow cards: Reilly (41’)

Red cards: Nil