By Tugrul Ozdemir

Monday 10 March 2008

A last minute goal by substitute Dario Matkovic has given Melbourne Knights a 2-1 victory over Whittlesea Zebras.

The Knights persistence paid off in the final play of the match when Andrew Barisic saw Matkovic’s run towards the back post. Hs long ball went perfectly onto Matkovic’s foot who fired the ball into the back of the net and gave the Knights their second win of the season.

Earlier, The first decent chance of the game came in the 19th minute, when a through ball got past the Knights defence, which forced keeper Savas Ozdemir to come off his line. As he tried to retrieve the ball, the pressure from Antun Vulic was enough for him to parry it away which then, Antun got position of the ball and his shot was well.

As the game continued the Knights still looked shaky and in the 31st minute, James Timmons miss judged the bounce of the ball and headed it backwards where it fell to Jerry Kapeh, whose shot was wonderfully saved by the former Preston keeper.

The Zebras missed chances proved costly in the 34th minute, when Ivan Franjic whipped in a great cross which found Joe Spiteri all alone who easily headed in his first goal of the season. In the second half the Zebras came out firing, and in the 46th minute Conner Molan crossed a ball into Jerry Kapeh for a chance to score, but the latter failed to finish.

In the 61st minute the pressure was too much for the Knight’s defence. They failed to clear the ball properly, resulting in it falling to Goran Talevski, whose miss kick rolled all the way to the back post to find Simon Lamanda. He tapped the ball into the back of the net to silence the crowd and bring the scores all even.

In the 67th minute Anthony Pelikan made a dashing run towards the 18 yard line and his curling shot looked like giving the Knights the lead, but it just went wide of the post.