Maroubra United 2 - 3 Dunbar Rovers B

Dunbar's Tower of Terror steals points from gallant Maroubra

The eagerly anticipated start of the 2013 season finally got underway at Coral Sea on Sunday.
With heavy rain in the days leading up, the pitch was in remarkably good condition thanks to the excellent work of the ground staff.

With Jimmy away and cards for Steve and George failing to arrive, we had the full permissible squad of 18
players available to choose from.
Not having trained or played in 10 days, the Green Machine were sluggish out of the blocks, regretting indulging in one too many Easter eggs!

Dunbar seemed to have a height advantage in every position across the park except Keeper, which they utilised to their advantage with route 1 football and with 20 minutes gone, Maroubra found themselves behind.
Rather than loose focus this seemed to galvanise the team and with some positional changes it wasn't long until we were not only back on level terms but leading 2-1 and in command of the game.

The first was one of our typical team efforts with some solid buildup play excellently finished off by Nelson (ok, punt forward from Karl..).
The second was the opposite with Pao receiving possession in his own half and then waltzing forward as the
opposition moved to close down any passing options for him, so he just kept on going with space continuing to open up in front of him. Finally with a clear sight of goal, he let rip from 25 yards with a clean shot which landed in the left corner of the net, far from the keepers reach.

Little needed to be said at half time apart from continue what you're doing but the second half didn't go as
planned. Dunbar had regrouped and came out strongly with a very physical approach which left both Yoshi and Leo requiring medical attention within minutes of the half resuming.
They definitely managed to disrupt our game and were continually putting us under pressure at the back, eventually forcing an error allowing them to equalise.
We still manged to recreate changes with both Selim and Tom coming close and John being taken out when
leaving his marker for dead - some refs would have deemed it a red card offense!

With 10 minutes to go, Dunbar crossed high to the back cross and Karl jumped to fist to safety but the lanky
frontman rose even higher, meeting it firmly and planting it in the net.
From there is was an uphill battle and Dunbar held out until the whistle

While not an ideal start to the season, for a squad with 10 new players there were still encouraging signs and with time everyone will get more used to playing together.
All the squad put in a solid shift, interchanging well and supporting each other throughout which bodes well for the season ahead.

So lets keep positive and work to improve over the coming weeks - there's a long season ahead.
Congrats to Nelson and Pao (Justin) who are now our joint top scorers for the season!

Team:
Karl, Pete, Frank, Dennis, Rod, Francis, Terry, Selim, John, Leo,Tom

Interchange:
Nap, Jason, Nelson, Keith, Kevin, Yoshi, Justin

Out:
Jimmy, Steve, George