One point from four rounds and Green Gully have their first foothold.
It arrived the hard way. Down 1-0 at half-time to Hume City, outplayed for 45 minutes, and Luka Romic keeping the Cavaliers in it with a string of impressive saves. Then something shifted.
Whatever David Chick said at the break, the side that emerged for the second half bore no resemblance to the one that had trudged off to end the first. Midfielder Scott Lochhead’s diving header from Bilal Habib’s cross was a finish any striker would be proud of, and the push for a winner that followed was the best sustained passage Green Gully have produced this season.
Now comes the hardest possible follow-up. South Melbourne, joint-top of the NPL Victoria ladder on nine points, visits Green Gully Reserve on Friday night.
Hellas are not just top of the table. They are the reigning Australian Championship winners, having claimed the inaugural title in December, and this season they are juggling the NPL with the OFC Professional League. Three wins from four rounds, six goals scored, three conceded, and only one blemish: a Round 2 home defeat to Hume City, in which South featured a heavily rotated XI.
There may be a familiar face in the South Melbourne defence. Former Cavalier Jacob Eliopoulos now captains the visitors from centre-back. It would be the second consecutive home match where a former Gully player lines up against his old club, after Adisu Bayew and Taylor Schrijvers returned with Hume last week. The revolving door of NPL football keeps spinning.
Another former Gully favourite, Nahuel Bonada, looms as the danger man. The Argentine forward struck twice in the space of two minutes at Altona in Round 3, turning a deficit into an unlikely win.
But South Melbourne’s OFC commitments may play in Gully’s favour. Several members of Sinisa Cohadzic’s strongest XI will likely fly to the Solomon Islands this week, with Hellas’ first game against Vanuatu United in Honiara scheduled for Saturday at 3pm. Currently 2nd in the Pro League standings, and nine points inside the all-important top four, South will no doubt leave reinforcements home to compete on both fronts.
For Ajax, the pattern of slow starts, conceding inside the opening quarter of play in three of four matches, has defined the season so far. The question is whether Gully can begin with the same intensity they finished with in Round 4.
The squad remains stretched. Michael Weir’s groin injury leaves Romic between the posts again. Defensive talisman Matty Crooks remains sidelined. Diego Cuba should return from suspension, which adds a body to a midfield in need of depth.
Fourteenth against first. One point against nine. On paper, this is a mismatch. But under lights, against a potentially weakened opponent, and with a group that has just discovered what it can do when it plays without fear, it might be something else entirely.
