Melbourne City FC will have the chance to close the gap on second-placed Doveton SC when the sides clash at Casey Fields this Sunday.
City kept itself in the upper reaches of the table with a come-from-behind win over North Sunshine Eagles away from home last Saturday, as the side was bolstered by the returns of A-League squad regulars Raphael Borges Rodrigues, Taras Gomulka, Kerrin Stokes and Matt Sutton.
⚽️ Caputo (38'), Lucente (51'), Politidis (74').
Our senior NPL side got back to winning ways with a character building 2-3 victory over North Sunshine after having initially gone two goals down. 💪
📰 Match Report: https://t.co/FpRLKh2C6o#CmonCity | #NPLVIC pic.twitter.com/eHK9Avjj2t
— Melbourne City FC (@MelbourneCity) July 6, 2021
The home team struck twice within the opening 30 minutes, with Daniel Dragovic finding the back of the net with a rifled effort from the edge of the area, before Jakob Mlcak took up the right position for a tap-in just a few minutes later.
Finding themselves 2-0 down so early on, the City boys rallied together to strike back, with a brilliant individual run and cross from Lucas Byrns on the right resulting in a comfortable header for Max Caputo to bring the scoreline back to 2-1 in the 38th minute.
City came out firing after the break, finding the back of the net through Daniel Lucente’s close-range finish to level the scores in the 51st.
Just as the chances began to dry up with the game appearing to be headed towards a draw, Harry Politidis popped up in the 73rd minute with a stunning volley to put his side in front for the first time, with the referee eventually blowing the whistle to signal a final scoreline of 2-3 in favour of the visiting City team.
Whilst this weekend’s opposition may hold the superior table position at present, City were certainly the better team when the boys travelled to face Doveton in Round 4 earlier this season, securing a four-goal win away from home.
The game had been poised at 0-2 in City’s favour for much of the encounter thanks to goals from Byrns and Caputo, before late strikes from Borges Rodrigues and Gomulka sealed the three points for City.
Doveton forward Samuel Catherine currently finds himself amongst the league’s top five scorers with eight from his 12 games played, whilst Joshua Frame and Daniel Hester have also been prolific with five and four respectively.
