By Lou Verga

St Albans Saints demolished Nunawading City 8-3 in an entertaining PS4 NPL Victoria NPL 1 affair at Churchill Reserve on Sunday.

Nunawading took an early lead through David Antequerra, but St Albans answered with four goals to have the result wrapped up at half time. The goals flowed again in the second period, with Tedros Yabio netting four in the rout.

The visitors started brightly and went ahead after just three minutes when the ball fell to Antequerra who made no mistake from eight yards out following a short corner routine.

It took St Albans less than ten minutes to find an equaliser as a calamitous back pass to the goalkeeper from Peter Evangelakos offered Nick Scerri a chance to caress a low shot into the far corner.

The home side were ahead after 15 minutes as another mix up at the back gave Yabio an open net to stroke the ball into.

Yabio scored his second just after the half hour mark with a well- taken volley set up by Ryan McGuffie’s header.

St Albans took a 4-1 lead with five minutes left in the first half with Samuel Antoniadis this time the culprit. His back pass allowed Barry Devlin to swoop in and roll the ball into an empty goal.

Nunwading had a chance to pull a goal back shortly after as Emile Damey was fouled from behind in the box. The striker’s low penalty was diverted onto the post by John Scollo and stayed out.

McGuffie opened the scoring in the second half with a booming header on 65 minutes, before Nunawading did pull one back with another opportunity from the penalty spot.

Substitute Anthony Giannopoulos stepped up this time and finished with conviction after fellow substitute Stefan Papageorgiou drew the foul.

A tap-in at the other end from Yabio made it 6-2 before Giannopoulos provided the pick of the 11 goals scored with a stunning effort.

The forward picked the ball up outside the area and hit it with the outside of his left foot, asthe strike curled and dipped perfectly inside the top corner after starting off target.

Further close range strikes from Yabio and Devlin in the final minutes rounded out the scoring.

MATCH DETAILS

St Albans Saints 8 (Scerri 12’, Yabio 15’, 32’, 78’, 78’, Devlin 39’, 90’, McGuffie 66’) defeated Nunawading City 3 (Antequerra 3’, Giannopoulos 73’, 82’) at Churchill Reserve


St Albans: 21. John SCOLLO, 2. Ryan McGUFFIE, 3. Nana Yew OTUO ACHAEAMPONG, 4. Nichols SARBIN, 5. Tedros YABIO, 8. Ross HARVEY, 9. Barry DEVLIN, 11. Nick SCERRI (20. Ante KOZUL 45’), 13. Anthony BORAS (6. Stjpen TRBUHOVIC 79’), 15. Konrad DUBRASZKEIWICZ, 18. Ben SHAPER

Unused substitutes: 5. Chris SIKETA, 9. George NICESKI, 22. Dilan IBRAHIM

Yellow card(s): Harvey 42’

Red card(s): None

Nunawading City: 1. Keegan COULTER, 21. Felix DIMITRAKIS, 31. Dylan FACCI, 11. Daniel PATTERSON, 41. Emile DAMEY, 5. Peter EVANGELAKOS, 44. Samuel ANTONIADIS, 9. David ANTEQUERRA, 16. Spencer EGAN-TANNER, 8. Mincen CUI (20. Stefan PAPAGEORGIOU 68’), 10. Ivan SKORICH (7. Anthony GIANNOPOULOS 58’)

Unused substitutes: 4. Ben Harvey ROBINSON, 22. James LOTERZO

Yellow card(s): None

Red card(s): None