Friday nights at Green Gully Reserve have become something worth turning up for again, and this one carries the same weight as the last.
The Cavaliers host Dandenong City in Round 22 with the survival equation unchanged. Gully remain bottom of NPL Victoria on 13 points, two behind Dandenong Thunder and six adrift of Bentleigh Greens, with five rounds to play. The margin for error disappeared months ago, but what has changed is the football. Three wins in the past month, over South Melbourne, Bentleigh and Thunder, have turned a season that was drifting into one with a pulse, and last Friday’s 3-1 win over Thunder was the most complete of the lot. Bilal Habib and Joshua Hope had the game in hand by half-time, Yusuf Ahmed sealed it off the bench, and for once the closing stages were played in comfort rather than anxiety.
Dandenong City arrive ninth on 26 points, and the gap in the table looks comfortable from their side. Their form does not. City are winless in three, having drawn 0-0 at Hume, lost 2-0 at home to South Melbourne and then fallen 2-1 to second-bottom Bentleigh Greens last Friday, a result that will have stung. One goal in three matches is a thin return for a side with nothing much to play for, and thin returns in late July are how a mid-table season goes flat. City did win the first meeting 2-1 at their place in April, but the team they beat that day bears little resemblance to the one that has been playing since June.
The tactical picture is straightforward enough. City’s struggles in front of goal mean this is a night where one or two moments of quality can decide it, and Gully’s recent home form has been built on exactly that, fast starts and early goals that let the game open up on their terms. Get the first one again, keep the crowd in it, and the pressure of a winless month starts working on the visitors.
Nobody at the club is pretending the mountain has shrunk, but every Friday it stays climbable is a Friday worth everything. Kick-off is 7:30pm at Green Gully Reserve.
Cavaliers!
