PICTON PREVAIL IN DISTRICT LEAGUE GRAND FINAL

A solitary goal was enough to see Picton Rangers crowned the ICU District League’s Grand Final Champions over Warilla Wanderers at WIN Stadium on Saturday.

Dayne Morley was on hand to finish smartly in just the 9th minute to give Picton the goal that would prove to be the winner as Rangers held out what had been a potent Warilla attack in recent weeks.

“It’s a great day for the club and the boys,” said Picton boss Brett Morley.

“It was always going to be tough, we started well and then they came back on us but I think we controlled the game for most periods.

“We restricted them to just a couple of chances and that really helped us.

“The pitch made a big difference today, I think it suited our style a little bit more and we played a possession based game.

“Our back three did a great job today and to keep Warilla scoreless is doing a pretty fair job.”

Coming into the game both sides had been in impressive goal scoring form and it looked as if that would continue when Morley found the net inside 10 minutes.

After a scramble on the right the ball found its way to Morley just inside the area where he lifted a first time strike into the net for the 1-0 lead.

A midfield battle ensued after the goal with the two sides battling for control of the ball that saw little action at either goal mouth.

Morley nearly grabbed another 10 minutes before the break but his back post header was saved sharply by Brad Jardine.

The second half saw very little action as Warilla hunted for an equaliser but Picton’s defence remained compact and denied Wanderers any clear cut chances.

Ben Roberts had a great chance to put the game to bed in the 72nd minute when he broke through on goal but Jardine did well to snag the ball as Roberts attempted to round the oncoming keeper.

Rangers held out for the remaining frantic minutes to earn a deserved 1-0 win on Grand Final day.

“A very disappointing performance by us today, I thought we never got out of the blocks,” said Warilla boss Barney King.

“They scored an early goal and after that I don’t think either of us created many chances.

“It was just one of those days where nothing came for us, we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we have been for the last month.

“We just couldn’t break them down after the goal, they did well and it was up to us to make a game of it and we weren’t able to do that.

“I can’t really put my finger on anything that went wrong, we just didn’t click today and that was it.”

This was Wanderers fourth consecutive Grand Final but after claiming the title last season they couldn’t do enough on the day to get back to back victories.

 

1-0

Picton Rangers

Warilla Wanderers

 

Goals:

 

D. Morley (9’).

 

 

 

Bookings:

 

D. Morley (y);

B. Durrant (y).

 

J. Stevenson (y).

 

Lower Grades

In a huge day for Thirroul FC, both Youth Grade and the Reserves came out on top in two absorbing contests to collect both trophies on offer.

The Reserve Grade started the ball rolling but required extra time to overcome League Champions, Balgownie Rangers by two goals to one.

As expected there was not a lot between the two sides throughout the 110 minutes as both teams worked hard to gain the upper hand.

After a scoreless first half, Daniel Vardareff gave the Rangers the lead 12 minutes after the break before Ryan Hunter equalised for the Thunder on 73 minutes when he rose high to beat Balgownie Keeper, Clint Worthington to the ball and nod home.

There was no more score in normal time with the winning goal being scored three minutes after the restart when Thirroul captain, Bradley Matiuscenko scoring with a powerful shot.

The Youth Grade game was an end to end affair with an abundance of goal mouth action at both ends resulting in a five goals to two victory for Thirroul over a gallant Corrimal Rangers.

Amazingly, Thirroul converted a lot of opportunities and raced out to a five goal lead with less than an hour played. To their credit, Corrimal never threw in the towel and deservedly pulled two goals back to add some relevance to the score-line which reflected their contribution to a terrific game of football by two good sides.
In the end though, Thirroul fully deserved their win and become the only League Champion over the weekend to ‘do the double’.

For the winners, Robbie Gyngell 2, Jonathan De Lyall, Marcus Rusbourne and Bradley Strudwick scored Grand Final goals whilst Bradley Acev and Jayden Bubb scored for the Rangers.

Julian Keith

FSC Reporter




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