Sydney Olympic won easily the 1^st round of the 2011 Football NSW Premier League against South Coast Wolves with an impressive hat trick from Alex Smith.

Heavy rain before the game started made the ground slippery but that didn’t stop Sydney Olympic that dominated the game for most of the 90 minutes.  Sydney Olympic had players unavailable due to injury, such as Makrys and Doumanis, a couple of players suspended Studman and Tibbets and Takayuki was also not available. 

Both teams had good chances in the 1^st half with Sasho Petrovski displaying his A-League experience for the Wolves and the Olympic boys showing some quality.   A shot from Robert Mileski in the last minutes of the 1^st half was saved by Brody Crane and the first 45 minutes finished with a 0-0 score.

The second half started in the best way for Sydney Olympic as on the 46^th minute David Gullo’s cross picked out an unmarked Alex Smith who volleyed the ball scoring the first goal for Sydney Olympic in the 2011 season.

Olympic then had a couple of chances, with Mileski and Alex Smith and Wolves also tried to score a goal to equalize whilst the rain started falling heavy again at John Crehan Park.  On the 70^th minute of the game David Gullo saw a second yellow card and left Olympic with 10 players. 

South Coast Wolves picked up as they were paying with an extra player but on the 79^th minute of the game a backline error from Jacob Timpano allowed Smith to steal the ball and chip Crane to ensure Sydney Olympic would take all three-points of the game.    Just minutes later Smith then secured his hat-trick in the closing stages of the match, curling a spectacular free-kick into the top corner, capping off a fine afternoon for himself and Sydney Olympic.   

Sydney Olympic FC coach Peter Tsekenis mentioned to the FNSW media that was there:  ““I thought we probably should have wrapped the game up earlier but the boys kept ticking away,We stuck to our task and got the three goals we deserved.”

He also mentioned about Alex Smith that scored 3 goals yesterday: “I think he’s a great player, he showed a lot of potential, he had a patchy pre-season but the quality has always been there.”

South Coast Wolves: 1.Brody Crane; 5.Nick Littler, 3.Dave Abel, 4.Jacob Timpano, 2.Alex Mansueto, 6.Lawrence Drake, 7.Samet Kaynak, 8.Andres Gomez, 9.Mark Picciolini (14.Cam Littler 81’), 10.Sasho Petrovski, 11.Chris Nathaniel (15.Peter Simonovski 75’)

Yellow Cards: Samet Kaynak 16’, Sasho Petrovski 80’  

Red Cards: Samet Kaynak 22’

Sydney Olympic: 1.Paul Henderson; 2.Emmanuel Giannaros, 4.Ibrahim Haydar, 6.Alex Smith, 8.Chris Triantis (15.Tod Bamber 84’), 9.Hussein Akil, 11.Robert Mileski (14.William Angel 75’), 12.Bill Tsandis, 16.Peter Triantis, 18.Jerry Kalouris (34.Brad Di Salvo 71’), 19.David Gullo

Yellow Cards: David Gullo 22’, Chris Triantis 56’, Jerry Kalouris 63’,

Red Cards: David Gullo 69’

In the Under 20s game that was played earlier, South Coast Wolves won 2-0. 

All results, fixtures and the table after round 1 can be found on Sydney Olympic website by clicking HERE. 

Photo by John Mavridis