A week ago the Cavaliers remembered what winning felt like. On Friday night at Green Gully Reserve they made it a habit.
Green Gully followed up their first NPL Victoria win in almost a year with a second, and this one carried none of the against-the-odds drama of the trip to South Melbourne. This was a home side on the front foot from the first whistle, a 3-0 win over Bentleigh Greens that was as comfortable as the scoreline suggests and could comfortably have been more. Back-to-back victories for a team that had spent the season searching for one, and the timing could not be better.
The Cavaliers came out with intent, pressing high, playing balls in behind and loading the box with crosses, and the reward arrived in the eleventh minute. Bilal Habib was tripped as he threatened in the area, and Kur Kur stepped up to convert the penalty and settle any early nerves. Habib was at the heart of everything Green Gully did well, and it was his work again that made it two on twenty-five minutes, winning the ball and rolling it to Josh Hope at the top of the box, where Hope curled a beauty beyond the keeper.
Two up and in total control, the only wobble came late in the first half. Bentleigh grew into the contest, worked their way into a couple of dangerous areas and rattled the crossbar from a set piece, and on another night they might have pulled one back before the interval. They did not, and any hope of a foothold disappeared shortly after the restart.
The third was the pick of the night and a showcase of the front three that has carried this recent revival. Habib found Kur, Kur slipped in Hope, and the finisher rounded the keeper before rolling into an empty net to make it 3-0 in the fifty-fifth minute. From there Green Gully never looked back, playing on the front foot and seeing out the evening as full value for the win.
There were milestones woven through the night too. Kyle Taylor came off the bench and looked sharp on his Cavaliers debut, while Daniel Alessi, so impressive on debut at Lakeside a week earlier, made his home bow from the start, and Yusuf Ahmed added minutes off the bench on his own home debut. New faces settling in, familiar ones firing, and a squad that suddenly looks like it believes.
The table still tells a hard story, but a kinder one than it did. Green Gully remain bottom on ten points, yet the gap to thirteenth-placed Dandenong Thunder has been cut to two, and Bentleigh Greens, beaten here, sit only six clear in twelfth. Survival was always going to come down to a handful of results in a handful of weeks, and the Cavaliers have now banked two of them in a row.
The run of home fixtures continues on Friday when Altona Magic visit Green Gully Reserve, another side within reach and another chance to keep the momentum rolling. Two wins do not end a relegation fight, but they change how it feels, and for the first time in a long time the Cavaliers are the ones applying the pressure.
Cavaliers!
