Ballarat City’s first goal from a corner kick this season came at a timely moment as Dom Swinton delivered the matchwinner in the 89th minute against Melbourne Victory.
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Generating corners has not been a problem for City, but converting from them has. But a clever glancing header from Swinton proved as crucial as any corner City is likely to have this season, handing it a telling 2-1 win over the highly-fancied Victory.
Melbourne Victory started in ferocious fashion and found the back of the net after 17 minutes.
Ballarat found its feet shortly after and began to match it with the visitors.
Josh Romein scored in the opening minutes of the second half to tie the scores up.
Coach Danny Gnjidic was rapt to see his side take the three points in such a hard-fought manner.
He expects the result to instill the belief into the players that it can match it with the top teams – something Gnjidic has long believed.
“Victory are a quality side, for our boys to come away with three points is a pretty big win for us. We’ve been saying that we need to knock off one of the bigger sides, just to build our belief in what we’re capable of,” Gnjidic said.
“I think it took our boys a little bit of time to adjust to what they were up against.
“Once we were able to limit their ability to get the ball forward quickly then we got into the game.
“They’re capable of matching it with these teams and tonight was testament to that.
“Hopefully the boys take a lot of encouragement from that.”
The win pushes City into seventh position on the ladder and keeps it in touch with the top six.
It was the first time Ballarat has come from behind to take victory this season, yet another reason why Gnjidic is hopeful the result can be looked back upon as a genuine springboard to the back-end of City’s season.
“We came from behind tonight – we haven’t done that all year.
“More often than not when we’ve conceded the first we’ve lost...to come back from behind in a game like that, hopefully it gives the boys a boost and the belief that I’ve been speaking about all year.”