By Tonci Prusac

St Albans Saints and Kingston City split the points in an eventful 1-1 draw at Churchill Reserve on Sunday in a game that had the home supporters frustrated at their side's inability to capitalise on numerous goalscoring chances.

The Saints went into today's game looking to maintain their impressive home record of four wins, a draw and a loss from six games at Churchill Reserve this season.

Right from the outset the Saints went into attack and managed to keep the ball exclusively in their attacking half during the opening five minutes.

It was City, however, which opened the scoring in the 22nd minute, courtesy of a Max Etheridge strike.

Etheridge found himself on the end of a superb attacking build-up, which started with a delightful long ball from Velibor Mitrovic to Stelios Konstantidis on the far side.

Finding himself with space to shoot, Etheridge pulled the trigger and his powerful, low strike managed to evade a diving Stuart Webster for the game's opener.

The home side didn't have to wait long for the equaliser, which came just eight minutes later.

Following a dangerous cross into the goal mouth from deep on the left side, Kingston defender George Stavridis slid in an effort to clear the ball away for a corner, but all he could do was watch the ball trickle over the line into his own goal.

The second started in much the same vein as the first, with St Albans on the attacking foot right from the outset.

In the 63rd minute, within 60 seconds of each other, the home side missed two sitters from point-blank range.

First it was Sean McIlroy – he had a brilliant second half - to miss from right in front.

Brian Devlin was next to follow, as he turned and watched his header hit the underside of the crossbar.

Substitute Ajak Panek was in the thick of the action for St Albans and he nearly got his name on the scoresheet minutes later, but he too saw his effort roll to the left of the upright.

In the 86th minute, St Albans coach Toby Paterson was given his marching orders for dissent to the referee, compounding a frustrating day at the office for the Saints boss.

Deep into stoppage time, McIlroy almost became the hero for St Albans but his curling, goal-bound effort was magnificently saved by an airborne Kingston 'keeper, Sermin Sadikovski, who had saved the visitors on several occasions throughout the afternoon.

After the game, St Albans team manager Danny Jutrisa was a frustrated man.

"We dominated the game, particularly the second half. But we missed a few sitters and that cost us in the end," Jutrisa said.

"It was just one of those days. We now turn our attention to the Dockerty Cup semi on Wednesday and hopefully our finishing will be better than today's was.”

Kingston City assistant coach Jim Lambrow was equally frustrated but satisfied with the end result.

"It was a very physical game, both teams were up for a hard game. But credit to our young boys, they stood up and did very well," Lambrow said.

"It was a hard-fought game and that was reflected in the drawn result. It would have been nice to get the win, but that didn't happen so we'll settle for the point.”

Next weekend's Round 17 will see the Saints make the trip up the Calder Highway to tackle FC Bendigo on Saturday night, while Kingston City is at home to the high-flying Richmond next Monday night.

Before then, however, St Albans will take on State League 1 outfit South Springvale in the semi-finals of the Dockerty Cup at Olympic Village on Wednesday night.

MATCH DETAILS

Round 16, 2014: St Albans Saints 1 (Own goal 30') drew with Kingston City 1 (Etheridge 21') at Churchill Reserve [HT: 1-1]

St Albans Saints: 1 Stuart WEBSTER (GK), 17 Adam NAKIC, 4 Barry DEVLIN, 5 Felix ROSMAN, 14 Christopher ROSS, 2 Ryan McGUFFIE, 8 Ross HARVEY, 10. Brodie PATERSON (18. Teddros YABIO 60'), 13. Nicholas CULLEN, 11 Yusuf YUSUF (16. Ajak PANEK 60'), 9 Sean McIlROY.

Subs unused: 21 Tonio BARESIC, 3. Gergi NICESKI, 15. Konrad DOBRASZIEWICZ,

Yellow cards: None

Red cards: None

Kingston City: 13 Sermin SADIKOVSKI (GK), 11 George STAVRIDIS, 2 Peter LORD, 6 Nick MODAFFARI (3. Stacy TSALKOS 50'), 14. Arthur PAPADAPOULOS, 17. Deniz SABANOVSKI (15. Gino DEFEO 79'), 8 Lukas PEDDER, 7 Velibor MITROVIC, 4 James KARVELIS, 12. Stelios KONSTANTINIDIS, 9. Max ETHERIDGE.

Subs unused: 3. Stacy TSALKOS, 5. Kemal CURAN, 1. Nicholaus WOOLWARD.

Yellow cards: None

Red cards: None

Image credit: Roberto Filitti