1996/7 National Youth League Southern Division

These statistics are supplied by Roy Hay and written for the Oz Soccer archive by Greg Stock. We believe them to be accurate and have taken every care to make them so. We would appreciate any correction of errors detected. If you wish to use them for private purposes please feel free to download them. If you wish to publish them contact Roy Hay. If you wish to use them for commercial purposes please contact Roy Hay to negotiate a fee.

National Youth League (Victorian Division),
11-12 January 1997

by Roy Hay

Gippsland Falcons and Green Gully drew one-all in the Latrobe Valley on Saturday in a hard fought and very even game. The Falcons might have had the better chances but could only score once through Archie Thompson after 56 minutes. Gully fought on strongly and equalised with a goal by Marco Denni, and Falcons manager Paul Hutchinson said Green Gully played 'exceptionally well'. Adrian Savage, Jonathan Buhagiar and John Hutchinson were tops for the Falcons, while goalscorer Denni and Mario Di Fazio starred for Gully.

Sunshine Georgies and Thomastown Zebras also drew one-all on Saturday. The Zebras went ahead through Michael Gulino in the second half and looked to have recorded the second victory of the season, but well into injury time Darryl Spiteri equalised for the Georgies.

Collingwood Warriors proved last week's victory was no fluke when it beat South Melbourne by three goals to one at Victoria Park. Con Karasividis fired a free kick just past the wall and into the far corner after only nine minutes, and for the first half the Warriors dominated. South Melbourne failed to pick up Pat Liapis and Mela Medjedovic when they came up for set pieces which resulted in numerous free headers for the tall defenders. On 41 minutes it happened again when Franc Catalano's corner-kick was headed home by Medjedovic. Souths came back in the second half and when the Warriors defence only half cleared the ball, Alex Efstathiou pounced, beat his man and scored cleanly. Thereafter the Warriors were content to soak up pressure and hit on the break, though Alfonso Opazo should have scored when he was left clear with only Dean Anastasiadis to beat. Finally Catalano broke away and left the Blues defence in his wake to score the third and decisive goal for the Warriors.

The Victorian Institute of Sport was just to strong for Springvale City running up eight goals to one against. Bill Petrovski and Zoran Petrevski each scored twice, though Petrovski suffered a bad ankle injury late in the game. The other VIS goals were all singles to Laz Zaekis, Michael Anderson, Mitch Bosevski and Michael Ferrante. For the young Springvale side Ian Eman scored the only goal. Five of the VIS squad are off to the Australian Institute this coming week. Michael Anderson, Grgo Saric, Adrian Cuzzuppe, Laz Zaekis and Zoran Petrevski are off on trial, with Anderson already accepting a full scholarship.

Melbourne Knights Colts downed Altona Magic by three goals to two. The game was a personal triumph for Ivan Razov of the Colts who contributed all three goals for his side. Darko Todevski kept up his scoring run for the Magic and Pece Siveski another prolific scorer got the other.

Bentleigh Greens had a couple of its experienced players to thank for its two-one win away to Heidelberg United. Stefan Oter opened the scoring in 32 minutes for the Greens, but when Daniel Malina equalised for the Bergers in 73 minutes it seemed to be heading for a stalemate. However with six minutes to play the Greens were awarded a penalty kick from which Andrew Charalambous scored to secure the win.

The match between Box Hill and Melbourne Knights was not played.

There will be a two-week gap in the NYL Victorian Division to correspond with the Socceroo matches in the four-nation tournament.