Jesse French scored a wonder goal late in the game to secure a 1-0 win for Fernhill over Oak Flats Falcons at WIN Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The first real chance of the game fell to Foxes’ mid season recuit Keegan Matias after just 12 minutes. A great tackle from Daniel Djukic saw him force a turnover. He drove towards goal before squaring to Matias who saw his shot deflected wide.
From the resulting corner, Chris Twigg cleared off the line with a header. The ball was pumped long and Bojan Caric. Fernhill’s goalkeeper Yuki Yasuda pummeled Caric a long way from goal in a mistimed challenge withe the custodian earning a caution for the challenge.
Just a few minutes later, a move started by Kyle Del saw the ball played forward to Djukic who charged forward and swung a ball across goal that found Matias, however he was unable to keep his header down.
On 20 minutes, Shotaro Iwamoto found some space on the edge of the box driving a shot that nearly found the bottom corner forcing Yasada into a low diving save.
Oak Flats’ best chance fell to Josh Eagleton on 36 minutes when he combined with Caric in a neat one-two before finding himself through on goal. His shot was well saved by Yasada.
Just before half time, another move from the right opened up the Falcons. Matias latched onto a pass and looked to shoot to the near post however Dominic Giustiniani blocked deflecting it just wide.
On 52 minutes, Brendan Pattman combined with Djukic who slashed his shot from an acute angle just across the goal.
In fact, most of the second half was an arm wrestle and as the clocked ticked by, the tension grew.
Iwamoto looked dangerous for the Falcons as he was starting to cause the Foxes some issues, however he was given a lot of attention in the second period.
With time ticking by and the game looking like it would go into extra time, French popped up with a beauty worthy of winning any grand final. Some good possession by the Foxes saw the ball squared to French in midfield. He beat a defender and drove to the edge of the box where he unleashed a left foot drive that found the top corner sending the Foxes into a frenzy.
In the dying minutes Giustiniani and Djukic got into a tussle which saw the Falcons defender sent off.
There was no time (especially down to 10) for the Falcons to force the game into overtime as the Foxes made it four straight wins over the Falcons this year.
Photos courtesy of Graham Brown (@Gragrapix)
