South crush Bergers 3-0 to claim first silverware of the season

I got there at what I thought would be 15 minutes late, only to see the Lalor-Oakleigh game for third place still being played out. Lalor Florina won that game on penalties, and showed a fair bit for a state 3 team. Apart from the first 20 minutes or so, where Heidelberg did better with the benefit of a squally breeze, South dominated the game at the times it mattered. Zoric's turning inside out of his opponent on the left lead to first goal, with Coveny coming and putting away what last year would have been another wasted opportunity. So 1-0 at halftime.
Second half all over them when we needed to be basically. A Heidelberg freekick hit almost timidly into the wall let to a lightning counter attack, with a two on one situation be being put away with no fuss by De Nittis. After that the game lost much of its edge. South took off some of its key players, and Heidelberg had little clue about how to break down South's defence, but also looked quite disinterested, like being 2-0 down didn't matter at all. Some people were concerned about getting players off with so much time left - truth be told, if we couldn't hold a 2-0 lead with all the momentum and 25 minutes to play, we probably didn't deserve to win it. Heidelberg did end up with one good chance at this stage of pulling one back, but Vassiliadis, who was given far too much time and space on this occasion, had his dipping shot saved onto the post by Tommich. Icing on the cake was Fernando hitting a curling 25-30 metre shot after a slightly comical bit of play where the Bergers keeper was left temporarily stranded outside his area, only for his defence to eventually clear, but a vintage Nando shot ended the contest as we knew it. Or something.

Zoric was man of the match, while Petrovic was subbed early due to obviously not being up to it on this occasion. We kept possession quite well, generally made good overlapping runs, and controlled the tempo of the game. Whoever said Coveny was finished might want to re-think their comments after this game. Heidelberg looked uncreative and flat for most of the game. They have a decent team, but maybe they've been overhyped by a few people. Clarendon Corner was in fine voice for much of the game, even storming the changerooms for a bit. There was no chanting from the Alexander side, and the infamous snake charmer only managed to blast away once on his clarinet. All in all, a good day.