Brave Stormers Bow Out To Souths
Centenary Stormers 0 Souths United 2 (OG 13'; Omerovic 47') HT 0-1 Played at: Atthows Park
Souths United avoided a potential upset with a 2-0 success over Centenary Stormers in Preliminary RD4 of the Westfield FFA Cup on Tuesday evening with Harun Omerovic's second half strike and a first half own goal enough to see the Flight Centre Premier League side head into next week's Round 5 draw. Stormers didn't look the same side that narrowly defeated Ipswich City in Capital League 2 at the weekend as they chased the game from the early stages with a multitude of corners dominating the opening half for the visitors and which would prove their undoing. With Sasa Radulovic's uncanny knack of scoring from corners, it was no surprise when he went close with one in just the 5th minute which needed Stormers keeper Alec Schofield's intervention to tip the ball over his bar. But it would be another corner minutes later that would produce the opening goal and unfortunately for the home side it would come from one of their own players with Inoke Boiselala inadvertently flicking the ball past his own keeper with his head when attempting to clear. Schofield did well soon after when Chihiro Ezaki fired in a shot from long range that the Stormers stopper had to acrobatically palm away for yet another corner. United were forced into an early change just before the half hour mark when Shoheel Khan caught Donghae Seo in the face with an attempted back heel flick. The Korean needing the visit of paramedics to attend to him whilst Chris Maher took his place on the field. Boiselala nearly made amends for his earlier blunder when he looped a header towards Radovanovic's goal from a lofted in free kick. The Souths keeper scrambling back and managing to finger tip the ball over the bar. For all their enterprise and first half dominance, United had to settle for the solitary goal at the interval and the hosts would have sighed with relief that they were still in the contest. Substitute Omerovic who'd come on at the start of the second half, took less than two minutes to find the back of the net. Stormers failing to clear their lines, allowing Omerovic too much room on the edge of the box. His low drive sliding in past Schofield to give the visitors a tow goal cushion that would prove too much. The home side did look much better in the second term and matched their higher division opponents. They should have pulled a goal back on the hour mark too when Steven Chester was playe-in in the box and had time to pick his spot. Instead he inexplicably spurned the opportunity, squirting his effort wide of the upright when it looked easier to score. Shoheel Khan also had a good chance to pull one back ten minutes later but he fired his shot straight to Radovanovic when perhaps you'd have backed him to slot the ball home. Schofield produced another fine save to deny Omerovic a second with a quarter of an hour remaining, whilst up the other end Keegan Bright, on for Chester, also had a good opportunity to reduce the deficit. Souths managed to soak up the pressure from Stormers as the final whistle announced their progression to next week's draw for Preliminary Round 5. In truth, United should have been comfortably ahead by half time but in the end, they got the job done over a valiant Stormers side that should be favourites for promotion to Capital League 1 come August.
Coaches Remarks:
Ben Schofield - Centenary Stormers: "I thought first half we were quite poor to be perfectly honest and were lucky to go into the break only 1-0 down. We lost a couple of players through injury from the weekend but the boys that came in did well. The second half I thought we matched them and actually created more opportunities than them. We had a couple of better chances that on a better day we score those. One bad mistake early second half and we're behind the eight ball but our second half against a team that's doing well in the Flight Centre Premier League, we can't complain." Vedran Becirbegovic - Souths Utd: "We were pushing too many players forward but were dominating the game. We had 20 plus corners and were probably a little but shy in front of goal. I think the result is fair though. Centenary are a good team and you can see why they're top in their league."
FB Media Player of the Match: Chihiro Ezaki - Souths United.
A work horse like performance in the middle of the park and showed skill and poise that wouldn't see him out of place in a higher tier side.
FB Media Stats:
Possession: 40% - 60%
Shots on target: 4 - 6
Shots off target: 7 - 13
Shots blocked: 0 - 3
Corners: 4 - 22
Free Kicks: 15 - 11
Penalties: 0 - 0
Offside: 1 - 6
Yellow Cards: 1 - 1
Red Cards: 0 - 0 Team Line-ups
Centenary Stormers: Schofield (gk), Boseilala, Chester (Bright 75'), Kavianpour (Donaldson 64'), Shaqlain Khan, Shoheel Khan, Kleibo, Le, Mehinagic (Saha 84'), Ruiz, Sarapung.
Subs: Crow (rgk), Bright, Doan, Donaldson, Saha.
Souths United: Radovanovic (gk), Alexander (Anderson 64'), Ezaki, Lyell, McKain, Mojica-Rodriguez (Omerovic 46'), Radulovic, Rodgers, Seo (Maher 28'), Smith, Jeskey.
Subs: Anderson, Maher, Omerovic. Referee: Paul Hyland