Melbourne Victory produced a strong display to record a 3-0 win over Murray United in the NPL2 West on Saturday.
Summary
Victory capped a dominant performance with three second-half goals at Epping Stadium.
Benjamin Carrigan, Jack Palazzolo and Nicholas Hatzigeorgiou were on the scoresheet in a deserved win for Victory.
Victory dominated the opening 45 minutes, but it was unable to find a way through.
Brandon Lauton, 18, was denied in a one-on-one by Murray goalkeeper Matt Mildren, while lively winger Yazid Said, 18, curled an effort just wide.
Victory had most of the possession, but it struggled to get in behind the visitor, which was content to sit back.
However, Victory broke the deadlock just before the hour-mark.
A well-worked corner led to Birkan Kirdar’s scuffed shot falling to Carrigan, the 19-year-old centre-back making no mistake from close range.
The lead was doubled in the 68th minute through Palazzolo, who finished clinically in a one-on-one with Mildren after Victory won possession high up the pitch.
Victory sealed its win with 10 minutes remaining, Hatzigeorgiou turning superbly before rounding Mildren to make it 3-0.
Head coach Gareth Naven
“I thought the first half we dominated play. I thought we needed more polish on the ball, more smoothness on the ball, and with a lot of possession teams have got to be responsible and I thought we were doing our best to do that. But I just wanted it tightened up in the second half and fair play to the boys, I thought they did really well in the second half and also at the same time I think they kept pushing forward to try and score more goals and that’s important rather than dropping the intensity, dropping the competitiveness off, I thought they maintained that so really happy for them, really happy about the performance and at the end of the day a 3-0 result for the team and the club. And defending set-pieces, creating our own standard of determining how we want to defend set-pieces is important to us and credit to them there as well.”
Under-20s
Victory’s under-20s saw their six-match unbeaten run ended with a 2-1 loss to Murray United.
NPL2 West 2018 Round 12
Melbourne Victory 3 (Benjamin Carrigan 58′, Jack Palazzolo 68′, Nicholas Hatzigeorgiou 80′)
Murray United 0
Melbourne Victory: Matthew Sutton; Andrew Visciglio, Benjamin Carrigan, Aaron Anderson, Jonathan Vakirtzis (c) (Luke Goulding); Thierry Iradukunda (Maker Maker), Nicholas Hatzigeorgiou; Brandon Lauton, Birkan Kirdar (Brady Quinn), Yazid Said; Jack Palazzolo.
Next week
Victory welcomes Sunshine George Cross to Epping Stadium on Sunday, May 20.
