Image: Australian Sporting Photos
“Crowley’s on fire, your defence is terrified,” sung Northcote City vice-president and football operations manager Peter Kotsiris following his club’s important 3-1 victory over the struggling Port Melbourne Sharks last Saturday.
He was of course referring to City’s in-form forward Braedyn Crowley, whose hat-trick against the Sharks took his season tally into double figures and earned him another rendition of Northcote’s parody of the ‘Will Griggs is on Fire’ tune in the home dressing room at John Cain Memorial Reserve.
The 19-year-old made his debut for Hercules in the reverse fixture in Round 8, a 3-0 defeat which saw City fall to their seventh defeat in eight games, a barren run yielding just two league goals – both Jonathan Bounas penalties – and leading to the departure of coach Alex Gymnopoulos.
Fast forward 13 rounds and the 2013 VPL Champions have given themselves a shot at avoiding the drop, despite having seemed relegation certainties for the better part of the campaign.
Following last night’s goalless draw with Avondale, Goran Lozanovski’s men moved to 12th on 16 points, one point ahead of Richmond, who occupy the automatic relegation placing alongside the all-but-doomed Melbourne Victory youth.
Crowley has been City’s chief destroyer under Lozanovski, with a five goal haul in the Round 16’s 5-0 drubbing of the Melbourne Knights destined to remain a part of Northcote folklore.
Having failed to find the back of the net in the three following league games, Crowley returned to form on the weekend and revelled in the number nine role up front, which he had not occupied since that field day against the Knights last month.
“I’ve been playing in the number 10 role the past couple of weeks, but I was buzzing to get back up at the top of the attack and see if I could score some goals”, the Townsville native told the FFV Podcast following Saturday’s match.
“The last time I played [up front] was a few weeks ago when I got the five, so I was feeling fairly confident and that all comes from the boys.
“Today it was probably the best game I’ve seen Northcote play all season a feel a whole lot more confident playing here at our home ground, which is a fortress where teams will not want to come play here.”
Having scored a mere eight goals in their opening 13 matches, City have now collected 14 from their last eight games, with Crowley citing the link up play between himself and his partners in the attacking third in James Papadimitriou and Anthony Ramzy as integral.
“We’re all pretty much bonding at training and all know the sort of balls we want, as if I’m playing number nine and Papa is in behind me, he knows the type of balls I want because he also plays as a nine,” Crowley said.
“Ramzy knows too, because we always talk about it and we don’t just go and train doing whatever. We go out there and see what things we can work on. Every time Ramzy gets the ball on the wing, he knows where to put it, so the bonding between us has been perfect.”
After making his senior debut for the now defunct Rockhampton-based NPL side Central Queensland in 2013 as a 16 year-old, Crowley enjoyed a breakthrough 2014, netting 17 times for home-town club Northern Fury, where he was coached by former Rangers great and Perth Glory coach Ian Ferguson.
That form catapulted the teenager into the national spotlight, and it wasn’t long before he was snapped up by the Newcastle Jets, going onto make nine A-League appearances during his 15 month-long spell in the Hunter.
Having had a taste of the professional environment, Crowley is eager to get back into the A-League, but admits that he is not looking to join any other NPL club at the expense of his current employers, who have welcomed him with open arms.
“I’ve played and had experience in the A-League, and it’s where I want to get back into as it was good at the Jets and I was really pleased with everything they did for me, but I just didn’t have the money to stay there in the A-League environment,” he said.
“So coming down here was a move, I haven’t regretted as it’s something I’ve enjoyed. I love being here with the boys as they are a good bunch of boys, and I’m fairly confident that if it comes to the end of the season and someone else calls, I’m not going to go to any other club unless it’s an A-League club.”
With Northcote firmly entrenched in the relegation battle, the former Jet is relishing the challenges that await the club in the next few weeks, with City taking on the likes of relegation rivals Bulleen and Richmond along with finals bound Hume, Bentleigh and a final day outing against Oakleigh.
“I’ve never been in a situation like this, and for the whole club to stay as positive as they have been has been great,” he said.
“It’s a big challenge for the club and they believe in every one of us. The Port game was a big six-pointer for us and we said that we had to win this game as the first one in the next four weeks, and have to win every game from now on and I’m confident we can do that.”