For an hour at Nasiol Stadium, the bottom of the table looked nothing like the bottom of the table.
Andy Vargas sent his Cavaliers to face second-placed Hume City, a genuine title contender, and watched them take the game to the hosts with a confidence their season has rarely allowed. Amanhom Khamis gave Gully a deserved lead in the 27th minute, and when Joshua Hope made it 2-0 in the 52nd minute, a side still searching for its first win of the campaign suddenly held a two-goal lead away from home against one of the division’s best.
It did not last. Hume responded inside three minutes through Taylor Schrijvers, and Christopher Engelhart levelled it in the 60th to turn the contest on its head. Vargas reshuffled in search of stability, pushing playmaker Diego Cuba back into central defence to shore up a back line under sustained pressure, and Cuba answered the call with a number of important interventions as Gully defended deep. The blow they could not absorb came from the bench, Godfrey Debele finishing off the comeback in the 84th minute to settle it 3-2 in Hume’s favour.
The result keeps Green Gully bottom of NPL Victoria on four points, still chasing that elusive first win, and there is no dressing up a fifth straight defeat. The performance, though, is worth holding onto. To lead a championship-chasing side by two goals on their own ground is proof this squad has more in it than the table suggests. The points are what the club needs, and badly, but evenings like this are where a turnaround starts.
Cavaliers!
