Using their heads: Brunswick City’s Hayden Crossley and Ballarat’s Simon Murphy fly for the ball. Picture: Justin Whitelock
BALLARAT Red Devils playing manager Brian Shelley isn’t concerned by his team’s predicament at the foot of the Football Federation Victoria state league two table.
The Haymes Red Devils suffered their third defeat of the season on Saturday at Trekardo Park, downed by the visiting Brunswick City side 3-2.
The loss leaves Ballarat with just one point after the opening four rounds, three points adrift of the 11th-placed Antona City.
Shelley, who returned from a hamstring injury on Saturday, said there was no cause for concern just yet.
“I’ve got no doubt there is plenty of time to turn things around,” he said.
“There’s a lot more positives than negatives to take out of each game, but ultimately the scorelines haven’t been our way so that’s what we need to address.” Shelley, who left the field shortly after half-time on Saturday with a corked thigh, said he didn’t pay much attention to the league table until the final eight rounds of the season.
It was Brunswick City that drew first blood at the weekend, taking the lead after six minutes before the Reds levelled the scores through a Michael Trigger header on 42 minutes.
Ballarat then went in front shortly after the re-start when a Trigger free-kick took a big deflection, wrong-footed the Brunswick City goalkeeper and spun into the net.
But on 61 minutes everything changed. Shelley went off and the Reds lost the control of the match.
The visitors scored two minutes later after a short corner from Ballarat went wrong, with the quick counter-attack ending up with a shot hitting the crossbar and the ball falling to a Brunswick City forward, who fired home. It then went from bad to worse for the home side, when a quick break caught the Reds off-guard, with defenders failing to close down a Brunswick City forward, who went past Daniel Tinker and fired under goalkeeper Simon Williams.
The Red Devils will look forward to the return of suspended international signing Sean Harding for this weekend’s trip to meet Altona East Phoenix.