Photo: Mark Avellino
Hume City’s narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of FFA Cup rivals Melbourne Victory was as coach Dean Hennessey aptly described; “a game of chess”.
The game was a meeting of the minds between two coaches who weren’t willing to give an inch to their opposition; moves exchanged in tandem by a pair whose past exchanges had helped learn the intricacies of each other’s game.
Hume were wary of the threat that their A-League opponents pose in capitalising on mistakes and as such, Hennessey set out to stifle their more fancied visitors by utilising their experienced players and remaining compact.
In the end it was only a first-half penalty that was able to split the two sides in a game of little chances.
“[I’m] delighted with the performance. Very proud of all the players, the coaching staff and everyone connected to Hume,” told Hennessey post-game.
“A fabulous crowd got behind us and supported us. I thought it was a harsh penalty to concede but I’m not going to make any excuses, I couldn’t ask for more.
“We tried to roll the dice a little bit at the end of the game and we almost pulled it off at the end, but couldn’t be happier other than the result really.
“We picked our most experienced team that we could apart from our left-back Deniz [Yildiz] who’s only 17 and all the boys on the bench were young,” he added.
“We’d try to go as long as we could, if there was injuries, then we’d make changes. I thought it was working and sometimes people want to make changes just for the sake of it. I didn’t think it was worth it when we just wanted to stick to what we wanted to stick to.”
Chris Oldfield was sent the wrong way from the penalty spot by a well disguised penalty taken by Besart Berisha, check Victory.
As it turned out, plucking the ball out of the net was a rare touch of the ball for the English goalkeeper, who remained relatively untroubled throughout, as did Victory’s King piece Lawrence Thomas at the other end.
“If you look to [Oldfield] he didn’t really have that much to save either,” Hennessey said on the chances created throughout the tie.
“It was a game of chess where we had to set up a certain way. We recognised that there is a class difference but I thought that the more the game went on, the more it worked in our favour of how we wanted to roll the dice later on in the game.
While it wasn’t the high-octane, attacking football that Hume City are capable of playing on their day, it was a game plan that consisted of going the distance, which in fairness was executed with relative success without finding the all-important equaliser.
The final half an hour saw shots blocked off both Nick Hegarty and Kym Harris, while the latter agonisingly dragged a shot into the side netting in injury time, which had some inside ABD Stadium convinced was their long-awaited goal.
Hennessey explained the rationale behind playing the brand of football that they did, pointing at the fitness levels of his side as a major factor in turning the dial in the final moments of fixtures.
“I wouldn’t have changed it as I think if we’d have gotten involved early and got pulled apart, then all of a sudden its two or three. The plan was to get to half-time at 0-0 and [on the balance of play] that was what the score was as the penalty was harsh.
“I think we’re one of the fittest, if not the fittest in our league, so I always thought we’d have the energy to go the distance. We tried to make it really compact so that we weren’t stretched too much.
“A lot of the time where we were defending well as a unit, we weren’t covering a lot of ground. If we had pressed too high or too early, their good players would’ve moved us around [on what is] the quickest pitch in the NPL.
“We knew as time went on – we play and we train on it – that we might in the last 20 minutes get something out of it. We changed the system slightly to bring [Nick Hegarty] central and two up top, three in the middle.
“Obviously you’ll get caught in wide areas, but you have to gamble. There’s no good losing 1-0 and not getting anything out of the game.”
The focus turns to the NPL Finals Series for Hennessey and co., who face off against South Melbourne in the second Elimination Final of the weekend.
Kick-off is scheduled for 5:30pm at Lakeside Stadium on Sunday afternoon.