With less than a kilometre separating Green Gully Reserve and Churchill Reserve as the crow flies, the Cavaliers will be treated to NPL Victoria’s shortest away trip on Sunday afternoon as they face St Albans.
Gully will be eager to make amends for a disappointing result at Heidelberg on Friday night, as they emerged empty-handed from perhaps the toughest away venue in the competition.
The visitors were level at the break after Kasper Hallam quickly cancelled out Jamal Ali’s early opener, but the Warriors ran rampant in the second half with three unanswered goals, extending their impressive unbeaten streak in regular season fixtures at Olympic Village to 23 games.
Ajax will be sweating on the fitness of holding midfielder Maurice Nugent, who hobbled off in the 39th minute and was replaced by Paul Hodges.
The Saints, meanwhile, sit in 9th place, just a single point above 12th-placed Gully in a crowded mid-table. St Albans suffered a 3-2 defeat to Melbourne Victory on Monday night, twice equalising through a well-taken corner and a dubious penalty, before conceding the winner as the speedy Victory attackers exploited Dinamo’s high line.
Sunday’s match will be St Albans’ first home game of the season on the newly redeveloped Pitch 1 at Fox Street – previous home games Port Melbourne and Avondale have been staged on Pitch 3. The pristine surface should provide ample opportunity for two ball-playing, technical outfits to strut their stuff.
Dinamo is a team transformed from this time last season, as the mid-season arrival of head coach Cam Watson signalled a dramatic shift in playing style. The Saints looked destined for the drop after a 4-0 loss away at Manningham in Round 20, before embarking on an incredible run of five straight wins to finish seven points clear of danger.
St Albans have endured an inconsistent start to their 2025 campaign, with highly impressive away wins at South Melbourne and Oakleigh contrasting with disappointing defeats to the likes of Melbourne Knights and Altona Magic. New signing Josh Gulevski has led the way with four goals in his last six appearances, and English target man Mickel Platt has found form of late, scoring against Knights and Victory in successive games.
However, Dinamo’s livewire wingers have been hampered by injury: Lucas Byrns has been limited to just three starts, and Emmanuel Peters was stretchered off after suffering an apparent achilles tear against Port Melbourne in Round 7.
As for Gully, speedy forward Kasper Hallam has struck a rich vein of form, with three of his four goals coming in his last two appearances. Hallam has netted at Churchill Reserve before, in a 4-0 win for David Chick’s Dandenong Thunder in 2023. The Tasmanian is not the only current Gully player to have scored at the venue, with Aamir Abdallah converting in Hume City’s 3-0 win last June.
The Cavaliers have the edge in the match-up as far as history is concerned: Gully has won 26, drawn 15 and lost just nine of its 50 meetings with St Albans, dating back to 1987.
Kickoff is set for 3pm, with the U23s in action from midday. Come down and enjoy what will be a sensational day of football against our local rivals!
