The Young Lions have lost two consecutive games for the first time this season after suffering a 5-1 defeat at the hands of first placed Junee Jaguars on Sunday afternoon.
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The first half was a tight affair with both teams knowing that the winner would be top of the ladder with a handful of games remaining.
Young started well and created numerous opportunities throughout the first half. They were rewarded when they earnt a penalty midway through the first half after Jacob Raad was brought down from behind in the penalty area. Calum McCaffery maintained his 100 per cent record from the spot for the season to give the Lions a deserved 1-nil lead.
The Lions continued to press for another goal and were unlucky not to have a second after the Junee goalkeeper was fortunate not to spill Raad’s shot into his own goal.
Somewhat against the run of play Junee managed to find an equaliser shortly before half time when their striker squeezed home a sliding effort from an acute angle.
The second half couldn’t have started any worse for the Lions when Frazer Burns was adjudged to have fouled his opponent inside the penalty area within a couple of minutes after the restart. Junee successfully converted the resulting spot kick to take a 2-1 lead.
Shortly afterwards, the Lions found themselves two goals down when they failed to play to the referee’s whistle. The Young defenders stopped when they thought a Junee player had been caught in an offside position only for another Junee who was in an onside position take possession of the ball. His attempted cross from the wing ended up floating over Young ‘keeper Mat McKnight’s head and bounced off the back post into the goal.
Despite Young’s best efforts, they were unable to pull back the deficit while Junee added another two goals to their tally.
After the match coach Mark Mellish was pleased with the effort his players had put in despite the result.
“All I ask of the players is that they put in 100 per cent each and every week. In recent weeks it has felt like this hasn’t been the case, but today was a different story,” Mellish said on Sunday.
“Junee are a quality side with some very good players. We outplayed them in the first half and were probably a bit unfortunate to have only scored the one goal – we had several opportunities but weren’t able to capitalise.
“Certainly 5-1 on paper looks to be a comprehensive victory to Junee but I can tell you that the game was a lot closer than what that shows.
“I think the penalty was the game changer today - I personally didn’t think that Fraze collected the player before the ball to give away the penalty, but obviously the referee saw it differently.
“In saying that, it was a tackle that needed to be made and I have told him that if he was in the same situation again I would expect him to make the tackle.
“It’s just a bitter pill to swallow that it came so close to the start of the second half and after the game even some of the Junee players said that it was a fair challenge – but the referee made his decision and unfortunately we couldn’t claw our way back into the match.”
Young next faces Lake Albert at home on Sunday at 3pm in what has become a must win match if the Lions want to remain in the top four of the competition. The women’s game will commence prior to the men at 1pm.
“It is an indication as to how close the competition is,” Mellish said.
“In two weeks we’ve dropped from first to fourth.”
Young Lions 1 (McCaffery) lost to Junee Jaguars 5.