Dandenong City eyeing NPL Victoria finals in first season back in top flight
Dandenong City’s thrilling victory over Green Gully has seen the club jump into the NPL Victoria top-six and on the cusp of a historic achievement.
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Dandenong City is vying to become the first club to play NPL Victoria finals after winning promotion.
Hadjuk jumped into the NPL top-six with a nail-biting 3-2 win over finals rival Green Gully at Gully Reserve on Saturday.
The club returned to the top-flight this season and if it can hold onto sixth-place would be the first to achieve the feat since finals were introduced in 2015.
Heidelberg United finished third after winning promotion in 2014 but there was no finals system.
After a 7-1 win over Moreland City last week, City carried on its goalscoring form as George Lambaridis, Danny Kim and skipper Jack Webster found the back of the net.
In a five-way fight for one finals spot, the result sees City a point ahead of Port Melbourne, two clear of Melbourne Knights and four in front of Altona Magic, while Green Gully are seven points back with five games remaining.
Coach Nick Tolios said it was a simple, yet difficult task, to make history.
“The NPL is a crazy league and each week you’ve got to be on your game.
“We’ve got to keep winning and if we do we’ll play finals football, which would be amazing.
“There’s plenty of football left so hopefully we can continue, we’ve got a tough game at home against Hume, we’ve got Melbourne Knights who are still fighting for a finals berth as well.
“We bounced back (from Dandenong Derby defeat), which we knew we had to if we wanted to play finals and playing finals after being promoted isn’t easy – I don’t think any team has done that.”
Lambadaridis opened the scoring in the 12th minute.
Kenny Athiu’s missed penalty, bounced back to Tom Giannakopoulos and he found Lambaridis unmarked on the goalline to tap home.
Green Gully responded after half-time and were level 10 minutes in through Gianluca Iannuci.
The Cavaliers star produced a wonderful solo effort, dribbling in from the left wing, shaking off two defenders before curling a perfectly-placed shot into the top right-hand corner.
However, the goal kicked Dandenong back into gear and Danny Kim restored the lead after 65 minutes, slotting home from a Valli Cesnik cutback.
And four minutes later, Webster rose strongly to head home a Cesnik corner to double the lead.
A Jamie Latham goal in the 73rd minute made for a nervous finish but City held firm to take the points.
“It was a back-and-forth game, Gully had the better of the first 10 minutes before we got on top,” Tolios said.
“I thought we could have had a couple more goals at half-time but credit to Gully they came out in the second half and made it difficult for us and scored a great equaliser from Iannuci.
“Then our boys went up a gear and took their chances and we scored two quick goals.
“The three in the midfield I thought were really strong – George Lambaridis, Tom Giannakopoulos and Danny Kim.
“Kenny (Athiu), although he didn’t score and missed a penalty, his performance in the second half was super – he locked the ball in and won important free kicks in good areas.”
Dandenong City now faces fourth-placed Hume City, which eased past Moreland City 2-0, at George Holohan Reserve.
Hadjuk brought in three players in the mid-season transfer window, Jacob Herbert (South Hobart), Ramsay Nasser (Bentleigh Greens) and John Honos (returning).
Seb Hernando (Caroline Springs George Cross), Matt Hennessey (Bentleigh Greens) and Kurt Kouakou (Manningham United) have departed, while Kyan Bryant was loaned out to Eastern Lions and Michael Martinovic to St Albans.
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Tolios is also keen to promote the club’s youth, handing debuts to Jake Noble and Ryan Crasto in the past fortnight.
“It was good to get another under-23 boy come on and play 37 minutes in Jake Noble,” he said.
“We made a decision as a club, we lost five or six players in the window, but if we weren’t going to bring in something better than what we’ve got we won’t disrupt the changeroom.
“We know we’ve got a lot of young kids coming up that we’d love to give opportunity to see where they’re at for next season as well, we want to look forward and bring these kids through.”
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