Port Adelaide Pirates edged out Sturt Lions 3-2 in a pulsating display of football in the Westfield FFA Cup Qualifying quarter-final at Adelaide Shores Football Centre on Wednesday night. Both sides went out all guns blazing and turned on the style.

The Lions took an early lead 14 minutes in thanks to some clever work by Samuel Speak. That gave Pirates a spark and they went on the attack, scoring three goals in under 20 minutes. Josh Giles scored first to finish some sublime passing. Lewis Farquhar got in on the action with some fancy footwork leaving his opposition behind. Giles popped up again to finish off a long and intricate set of passes to make it 3-1 at half time.

The Lions came out in the second half with a roar and tested the Pirates defence. After some close chances they pegged a goal back thanks to a fine effort from Nicholas Atkinson with 6 minutes to go of regular time. It was a tense finale but Pirates held their nerve to go through to the next stage.

Pirates Senior Coach Derek Hall was happy to see his side get through in what was an exciting match.

“I thought the first half we played very well. We made a terrible mistake to give them a goal but then went on to play some lovely football and scored three really good goals.”

“And then second half to be fair to them, they came out and had a really good go at us and it was a good game second half. I thought we did enough to win the game but credit to Sturt, they really fought to the end.”

With Pirates’ forward set up producing plenty of opportunities, Hall said it’s a promising sight to see.

“Yeah it’s fantastic, I think we created a good 7 or 8 really good chances and we need to take more of them because if we took more of them the game would’ve been over at half time. But the boys up front are always dangerous, we’ve scored every game of this season so that’s not a problem.”

Hall was also ecstatic to see his club get this far for a wide range of reasons.

“It’s brilliant for the football club, and everyone from volunteers to all the workers and the committee and the supporters especially because we get great support.”

Unfortunately there has to be one side who doesn’t continue into the next round and Lions’ Anthony Taylor said his side showed good signs but also learnt some harsh lessons of football.

“It was a big game of two halves to use the old cliché. We didn’t start well in the first 10-15 minutes and had a 20 minute lapse and you can’t do that against a Premier League team and they punished us.”

“I thought in the second half we were very strong. Both teams had their chances but I thought we were on top of them for most of the second half though and we were probably unlucky to get the third near the end there.”

Taylor also talked about the mixed emotions in the locker room after the defeat.

“It was a bit of everything really, bit dejected at the loss but at the same time we knew we could match it with a Premier League outfit it was good for the boys because we did put a young team out there.”

However, Taylor remained positive about his club’s future after some promising signs.

“We fielded a fairly young squad, we were missing 3 or 4 regular first team players and they stepped up and did really well and they did it when they were needed to.”

Article by Matthew Carcich - @Matt_Carcich