It’s been over 8 months – 260 days precisely – since inaugural NPL champions and Community Shield winners South Melbourne lost an NPL Victoria match, a Round 20 fixture against Bentleigh Greens at Kingston Heath on August 6th. Note that the finals series loss to Metrostars doesn’t count, we’re purely looking at Victoria here. So what has happened in the state since that day? Let’s find out:
Oakleigh finished 2014 runners-up, before conceding a 15 point league gap on South in 2015
The Cannons have only picked up 5 points in 2015 compared to South’s 20, with Miron Bleiberg departing in the process.
Bentleigh Greens have been knocked out of two FFA Cups
Backing up the semi-final loss in 2014 with a 5th Round exit in April 2015.
Milos Lujic has scored 13 league goals in as many games
And won an NPL Championship, NPL Golden Boot, NPL Player of the Year, etc etc. For the record, it was six goals to wrap up 2014, and seven to begin 2015.
Werribee City have won one league game
Whereas Avondale FC have been promoted and won four.
Andy Brennan joined the club from Tasmania and then earned a trial at Newcastle Jets
He’s coming along in leaps and bounds (as seen in the photo below), under the watchful eye of Phil Stubbins who was in attendance at the Melbourne Derby.
Green Gully have twice conceded more goals in a single game than South Melbourne have all season
Hellas have conceded five all season, whereas Gully conceded six goals against North Geelong and eight against Heidelberg. Mind you, all of Heidelberg, Bentleigh and Port Melbourne have also only conceded six times in 2015, exacerbating Gully’s defensive woes.
Northcote City lost (and seemingly cursed) their centre-backs
Adrian Chiapetta signed for Oakleigh at the end of the 2014 season, while Kristian Konstantinidis was poached by South Melbourne on the eve of the 2015 season, with both suffering long term injuries since.
Jason Hayne has copped two red cards for two different clubs
One for Green Gully on August 16 against Melbourne Knights, and another for Northcote City against, funnily enough, Green Gully in Round 1 this season.
Box Hill, once the hunters, became the hunted
After just missing out on promotion to the NPL by finishing third in NPL 1, they’re now languishing on the wrong end of the table following a huge turnover in personnel. They lost coach Arthur Georgiou, and on our count, at least 12 players:
