The Central Coast Mariners headed down the highway to Parramatta for a Friday night fight against the Western Sydney Wanderers and left with all three points after a solid 3-1 win.
As the transfer window had opened up, the Wanderers announced a pair of signings. The first was bringing left fullback Alex Gersbach home from Europe to compete with Jack Clisby for a starting role, the other was the return of former Wanderer Jarrod Carluccio after his short stint in Perth. Rumours also abound that another former Wanderer, Mo Al-Taay would be coming back after his exit from Wellington Phoenix as an injury replacement for Dylan Scicluna and finally that the club were looking for a foreign signing to play in central defence.
The game opened up in the Wanderers half of the field as the Red & Black struggled to play around the Mariners high press. Alex King let a lot of poor challenges go early, with one from Alfie McCalmont causing himself some mischief when he came in late and wildly on Oscar Preistman. The Mariners midfielder missing the ball then wrapping his own leg around Preistman and requiring treatment from the medics and in the 10th minute requiring his substitution by 16 year old Haine Eames.
Central Coast shrugged off the early change by opening the scoring in the 14th minute. A simple left foot cross found Alou Kuol inside the box, none of the three Wanderers defenders around him could stop him, and after a couple of rebounds around the box it ended with Koul shooting to the back post & past Lawrence Thomas to make it 1-0.
Aydan Hammond sparked the Wanderers first chance of the game, his twinkle toes at the edge of the penalty area getting him past multiple defenders and slipping it through to Marcus Antonsson who dinked a lovely chip over the keeper but it wasn't powerful enough to get it past a cover defender who managed to kick it off the line and into the arms of keeper Periac-Cullen.
With the exception of Hammond the Wanderers had nothing of value in attack and in defence were lucky to not go in 2 behind after giving up a 2 on 1 minutes before half-time. Alen Stajcic made two changes for the start of the second half, with Kraev & Antonsson hooked for Zac Sapsford & Nicolas Milanovic.
Christan Theoharous and Mikael Doka both had cracks at goal nearing the hour mark. From either side of the field, Theoharous shot wide from the Mariners left wing and Doka forcing a good save out of Thomas on their right. Aidan Simmons came on in the 62nd to replace Aydan Hammond. Theoharous and Arthur Del Ima making way for Ryan Edmondson & Vitor Feijao. The Wanderers had managed just 4 shots on goal for 70 minutes, their attack looking slow & laboured after a long flight back from Perth earlier in the week. Feijao tried to catch Thomas out at the near post but Thomas was paying attention and didn't take any chances to turn it around for a corner.
The Wanderers defence collapsed into a soft pudding like substance at the corner, allowing the Mariners to take not one, not two, but three easy shots at goal without putting any pressure whatsoever on them. The first was a free header from Koul that crashed into the crossbar, the second was a reflex snapshot from Trent Sainsbury that Borrello headed off the line, Milanovic shied away from a 50/50 with Doka, who managed to nutmeg the Wanderers attacker and deliver a short cross into the 6 yard box. The two central defenders had gone missing and left 5'8 Borrello in the middle of the 6 yard box to attempt and fail to stop the 6'1 Edmondson from smashing home a header to double the visitors lead.
Carluccio's awful second debut ended in the 71st minute, with Alen Stajcic desperately throwing Juan Mata into the rain soaked fray. Anthony Pantazopoulous got himself in the referees notebook with a poor challenge on halfway.
Mata finally injected himself into the play in the 84th minute and helped give his team hope leading into stoppage time as his left foot cross found the head of substituted James Temelkovski, the former Marconi striker making no mistake from 7 yards out to make it 2-1 with a handful of minutes to play. A lost corner from the Mariners had Western Sydney go all the way up the other end of the pitch with a lightning counter-attack that was foiled inches from an equaliser, Sapsford's ball across was overhit and it pushed Borrello wide enough to stop him getting any power on the shot which was blocked on the line.
Kaltalk rescued his keeper from a horror mistake in the 89th, he claimed a cross but dropped it cold at the feet of Sapsford, who had an open net to shoot into except for the desperate block of Kaltalk. Central Coast secured the win with Doka scoring a breakaway 3rd, he beat Simmons for pace, ran the entire half & went around Thomas to finish into the open net.
It was a deserved win for the Mariners who apart from the short, typical period of a Wanderers side invigorated by going two behind, dominated the game in attack, were desperate in defence in a way the home team weren't and had the quality to complete the final pass and shot to put multiple goals away while their opponents missed open nets, refused to get stuck into challenges and repeatedly allowed defenders to make blocks off the line with ineffectual finishing. The Wanderers remain three points and a poorer goal-difference from 6th place and will likely be further than that at the conclusion of the round.
The Wanderers next match is on Sunday the 26th against Auckland FC in Parramatta with kick-off at 5:00PM.
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