Heidelberg United coach George Katsakis was thrilled with his side’s 3-1 away win over Bentleigh Greens – a result that Katsakis feels was “well earned”.
“Everything was against us and we had to make the internal changes at half-time and to be quite honest, the boys had to work very hard for it – it was a well-earned win,” the Heidelberg boss said.
“I think it’s a bit of momentum creeping into our game nowadays.
“Last week we had to grind out a result against Melbourne Knights and this week we had to do the same – although flattering, I thought it was well-earned.”
Heidelberg maintained the belief to overcome a one-goal deficit early on to score three straight goals and round out a comprehensive win, with Katsakis waxing lyrical about the effort of his charges.
“Credit to our boys – the keeper was on his game, Steven Pace I thought was phenomenal (with) the holding off today,” the Warriors boss said.
“He’s been in Team of the Week for the last three weeks and now you can tell why – he’s solid as a rock.
“Let’s not forget that the boy’s come from a professional environment in the A-League and played many seasons at this level.
“Jordan Wilkes, [for a] 19-year-old kid to step in that position at centre-half while Luke Byles has gone missing – it’s just phenomenal.”
The praise didn’t stop there with Katsakis praising goalscorer Dan Heffernan, whose 30th minute equaliser was incredibly the forward’s 10th goal of the season – making him the first player to enter double figures.
“What can I say? [Dan Heffernan] is just class,” he said.
“I don’t want to sell Kaine Sheppard short with his performance because it’s just a great duo up front where they’re finding each other regularly.
“They’re scoring amongst each other and they’re working really hard for each other so it’s a great combination – I think it’s a deadly strike-force,” he added.
Friday night’s triumph over Bentleigh marked Heidelberg’s sixth consecutive win – an unbelievable run of form that Katsakis will hope to continue against Northcote this week.
“I’m overwhelmed to be honest – it’s an amazing run,” Katsakis said.
“We’ll just keep going – we’ll go back to the drawing board during the week and work on things.
“We’ve got a massive challenge against Northcote next week.”
Katsakis’ men have experienced a brilliant run of form lately and could be forgiven for having title aspirations at this point in the season but the level headed coach maintains his team won’t get ahead of themselves.
“We’ll just take week in week out, we’ll take it as it comes,” the Bergers boss said.
“If we can make ground on South [Melbourne] and they drop a point or two then we’ll think about it then.
“Ultimately, we hope that coming from Division 1, we could possibly consolidate a strong squad, try and consolidate in the NPL being a new league and the following year we can make plans for championships and so forth but at this point, anything above sixth is a massive effort for the club,” he added.
Heidelberg will face Goran Lozanovski’s Northcote City next week and Katsakis hopes to readjust his back four to deal with a determined Northcote attack that is coming off a comprehensive 3-0 win.
“We’ve basically lost our whole defence line so we’re going to try and readjust and slip people into unfamiliar areas – hopefully they can adjust accordingly,” he said.
“I suppose the 10-day turnaround is good because we’re going to have a bit of a rest … hopefully we get another positive result.”
Heidelberg take on sixth place Northcote City on Sunday as they look to continue on with their good form. Kick-off at Olympic Village is scheduled for 5:00pm.