Melbourne Knights FC Official Website The Melbourne Knights have opened their 2020 NPL Season with a 1-1 draw away to the Port Melbourne Sharks last Friday evening at JL Murphy Reserve.
In what was an end to end game played out in humid and wet conditions the Knights will be satisfied with their performance after being reduced to 10 men late in the first half.
New Knights head coach Stuart Munro handed six players their debut for the club in his starting eleven.
The Knights started the game brightly taking the game to the home side, with debutantes Sivic and Yildiz both getting involved in the attacking play and putting numerous dangerous crosses inside the area.
The game was turned on its head when Mathew Breeze received his marching orders in the 38th minute after a crude mistimed challenge.
The Knights did well not to concede and got into the half time break with scores level at 0-0.
Munro made a change at half time with Marcus Duncan replacing Conor McDonald at the break which saw captain Joseph Franjic step into the middle of park alongside Nikola Jurkovic.
The Knights continued to control the game despite being a man down and in the 69th minute it was last season’s top goal scorer Hamish Watson who gave his side a much-deserved lead.
Franjic won the ball in the middle of the park and found Watson out wide on the left. He then barged his way through the Port Melbourne defence and smashed the ball into the far corner to put the Knights one nil ahead.
Port Melbourne then began to through numbers forward and after a number of missed chances they finally got the equaliser in the 83rd minute through Francesco Stella.
The Knights now face Dandenong Thunder at home this Friday evening at 7:30pm.
