A Christian Cavallo debut wasn’t enough to prevent Green Gully from becoming the first NPL Victoria into the national stage of the FFA Cup, with Bulleen Lions succumbing 1-0 at Gully Reserve.
The result also puts Gully in the semi-finals of the Dockerty Cup, meaning Arthur Papas is one win away from matching last season’s feat of making the final with Oakleigh Cannons.
In the night’s other fixture, Richmond SC dispatched Kingston City in the catch-up game from last week to set up a date with Hume City in Round 7 of the competition.
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The Lions unveiled the former Bentleigh Greens and Melbourne Victory fullback, who returned from overseas to kit up for the Cup.
In classic cup fashion, a first half yielded no goals as a defensively sound Bulleen were able to hold off the threatening Gully.
One of the better chances early fell to Evan Christodoulou after the ball fell to him in the area, curling an effort just past Griffin McMaster’s woodwork.
At the other end it was Barresi with a free kick from distance that gave the visitors a sigh on goal, but Rani Dowisha saved the opportunity well.
The warning signs were there in the 55th minute when a McMaster double save saw him deny Liam Boland and Jay Davies on the follow-up in quick succession.
Moments later in the 59th minute it was veteran Roddy Vargas who propelled his side to the lead with a trademark header.
Former Victory man Cavallo then saw his night come to a close on 70 minutes, marking the end of a hard-working maiden shift.
Lorenzi and Boland also exchanged chances for both teams, testing the respective keepers.
But any late efforts by the Lions didn’t culminate in a goal, as Gully held on for the hard-fought win to earn a date with destiny.
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There was plenty of banter on Twitter early between Kingston and Richmond regarding last week’s floodlight situation at KB Reserve leading to the clash being delayed a week, but it was the latter who had the last laugh, putting out City’s lights in the competition.
Nonetheless it was an impressive run from Kingston, who were the last remaining NPL2 side left in the competition, but they were powerless to resist as a Geerd Roorda-inspired Richmond outfit ran riot early.
The first goal came after 12 minutes when a corner from set-piece specialist Jake Barker-Daish fell to Roorda to finish into the net.
The Dutchman doubled the lead in the 22nd minute with a fantastic long-distance strike to beat Sermin Sadikovski in goals.
Progression into the next round was ultimately sealed by just after the half hour mark when a clever ball from Liam Flynn was tapped home by Nick Kokolakis.
While Damian Iaconis pegged one back for Kingston via good buil-up work from Jerry Karpeh, the result acted as mere consolation for Kingston, whose attention will now return back to the league.
Richmond now have the unenviable task of heading to Broadmeadows to face Cup heavyweights Hume City, who are still on track to emulate last season’s spectacular run to the national stage’s semi-finals.
Image: Green Gully SC