Berwick City’s Stuart Mackie set-up his side’s first goal in its 2-1 win at Morwell on Saturday. By Paul Pickering
BERWICK City’s youth-led resurgence gained further momentum on Saturday, as the City boys claimed an unlikely road win against the Morwell Pegasus in Football Federation Victoria’s State League Division Three South-East.
City coach Joe Carroll described last week’s brave loss to Doveton as the best performance he had seen from the club, but he was equally chuffed by the 2-1 triumph on Saturday.
It came against a team that finished just four points shy of promotion last year and was previously unbeaten in 2008.
Most impressive was City’s ability to rally from an early deficit after Morwell’s Paul Byrne slotted the first goal.
The visitors equalised before halftime, when a Stuart Mackie cross was deftly side-footed in by right-winger Justin Fernand.
Midway through the second, Orlando Mejias dissected a pair of defenders and slammed the ball into the bottom left corner of the net from 20m out.
And while the Pegasus threw everything at City in the remaining 25 minutes, Carroll’s charges held strong to secure the three points.
Carroll could not speak highly enough of his young team after the match.
“When you’ve got a lot of young kids in the side, it’s all about self-belief,” he said.
“And when we went down a goal we didn’t get our heads down.
“The way we played the week before gave us that self belief and we carried on with it on Saturday.”
Carroll was delighted to have taken four points from two notoriously difficult trips to Southern Suburbs – in round one – and Morwell in the first month of the season.
Elsewhere in Division Three, Doveton strengthened its position atop the ladder by defeating Southern Suburbs 3-1 at Waratah Reserve, while Endeavour United salvaged a 1-1 draw from its trip to Croydon City.
Meanwhile, in Division Two South-East, the Casey Comets recorded an impressive away victory in edging out the Doncaster Rovers 3-2.
Round 4 match-ups: Div 2 South-East: Eastern Lions at Casey Comets. Div 3 South-East: Sandringham City at Endeavour United, Doveton at Springvale City, Brandon Park at Berwick City.
