The Brisbane Roar Youth have recorded a comprehensive 4-0 win over Melbourne Victory.
The Brisbane Roar Youth have put aside three tough weeks to comprehensively defeat the Melbourne Victory Youth 4-0 in Melbourne on Sunday.
After having match and training schedules thrown into disarray by the devastating floods that hit Queensland over the past fortnight, the Roar Youth showed great fighting spirit to brave stiflingly hot conditions and outplay the Melbourne Victory Youth in what was only the second match Brisbane had played since December 11.
While the first opportunity of the match fell to the home side, it was the visiting Roar Youth that really dominated proceedings throughout the match.
Following the dynamic play of Brisbane midfielder Alastair Quinn, Brisbane took a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute when Kenneth Dougall hammered a powerful shot from range that caught Victory keeper Sebastian Mattei off guard.
Brisbane continued to pressure an at times fragile Melbourne Youth defence and was unlucky not to take a larger lead into half-time following opportunities to Josh Groenewald and Josh McVey.
The second half began in similar fashion to that of the first with the Roar-s impressive play resulting in an early goal to super-sub Matt Thurtell only minutes into the second stanza.
The young striker capitalised on a string of mistakes by the Melbourne defence and scrambled the ball into the back of the net.
Melbourne tried their best to keep the deficit to two, however the dominant performance of the Brisbane Youth midfield indicated more goals in the contest.
However the spectacular third goal came from an unlikely source with Daniel Bowles unleashing an acrobatic side-scissor volley on the 88th minute to send the ball crashing into the back of the net and all but guaranteeing a win for the Roar.
Brisbane capped off a strong all around performance with a fourth goal in the final minute of regulation with a cheeky finish from James Donachie to give Brisbane a morale boosting win.
Brisbane Roar Youth coach John Sime was delighted by the way his side performed on the day saying he had been concerned the long lay-off between games would have an adverse effect on his team.
“The boys did incredibly well to put in such a strong performance,” Sime said.
“After such a long time between our last match due to the rain and flooding I thought the boys might have had more of a difficult time; however they tall turned up and put in a quality showing.”
The one aspect that impressed Sime the most however was Brisbane-s ability to put the ball in the back of the net, even though they were missing usual overage players James Meyer and Rocky Visconte.
“It was great to see the side doing so well up front and everyone getting involved in the attack, something I think is best demonstrated by the four different goal scorers,” Sime said.
“Hopefully we can maintain our focus and I-m sure the strong results will continue.”
