A youthful Glory side playing their third game in six days days went down to a 6-0 defeat at the hands of Premiership contenders Western United in Launceston on Saturday afternoon.
Full video highlights HERE.
Ruben Zadkovich’s charges began brightly and looked the better side during the opening exchanges, but were dealt a cruel blow when Lachlan Wales’ deflected effort gave United the lead after 25 minutes.
Wales then volleyed in his side’s second goal moments later, with Dylan Pierias sliding home a third before Wales completed his hat-trick to send John Aloisi’s men into the break 4-0 up.
The scoring was completed in the second half by a penalty from Aleksandar Prijovic, who had seen a first-half spot-kick saved by Liam Reddy and a late, opportunistic finish from substitute Dylan Wenzel-Halls.
Zadkovich pulled no punches in his assessment of the performance.
View his full media conference HERE.
“It was poor, extremely poor,” he said.
“Some individuals didn’t want to go about the game the way they need to at this level and it cost the team, especially in the first half.
“Basic fundamentals.
“I’m not talking about the young, inexperienced players; I’m talking about some our our seasoned professionals.
“Players will get exposed, players will be a part of what we’re building next year and players won’t.
“We don’t have the time and the luxury at the moment to train and go through the details we need to, so there are some circumstances around why you get a performance like that.
“It was our third game in six days and we had less than 70 hours to turnaround and travel after playing Wellington when the boys put in a big shift.
“So there are some reasons, but we had some difficulties and people didn’t want to fight when the chips were down and things were difficult.
“You’ve got to want to fight and compete and some players didn’t and like I say, when the first goal went in, you saw some people lose their heads and you saw other people try and wrangle it back in.
“Watching that unfold was really interesting for me.
“I’m bitterly disappointed, I’m fuming to be honest and there will be repercussions for some people.
“The two heavy defeats we’ve had have happened when we’ve had to back up three days later and travel on the road with the youth team, pretty much.
“So it is what it is and my message to the fans is to hang in there by the club through tough times, which I know they will.
“Long before this tough time, there were other tough periods at the club and the fans stayed true because like I said last week, they’re passionate fans, they’re good people and they understand the difficulties that we’re facing at the moment.
“The games that we’ve actually had a chance to prepare for, even with a young team, they’ve performed quite well, so those two homes games [the final two games of the season] become massive for us in terms of actually giving ourselves the chance to give the fans something to get behind.
“They deserve better than what they’ve got this year, they deserve better than what they’ve got in the last two years and if I’ve got anything to so with it, we’ll make sure we fix these problems.”
Despite their far from ideal preparations for the game, Glory were the better side for the opening 20 minutes, enjoying more than 70% of the possession and putting the Victorians on the back foot.
It therefore came as something of a bolt from the blue when United were awarded a penalty after Josh Rawlins was rather harshly adjudged to have handled a Neil Kilkenny free-kick which had been flicked on across the box by Prijovic.
Prijovic took responsibility himself, only for Reddy to pull off a superb save, diving low to his left to block the Serbian striker’s effort.
The Glory ‘keeper was helpless to prevent United hitting the front moments later, however, Wales deflecting the ball past him from close-range and the Olyroos forward almost immediately doubled his side’s lead with a thumping volley from the edge of the box.
Pierias then swept home a Connor Pain cross to make it 3-0 and in first-half stoppage-time, Wales completed his hat-trick having been picked out by Ben Garuccio.
Seven minutes into the second half, a shirt tug on Wales by Antonee Burke-Gilroy handed Prijovic the chance to make amends from the spot, which he duly did despite Reddy’s best efforts.
Glory came close to grabbing a late consolation via Josh Anasmo’s header from a cross delivered by fellow-substitute Tyler Vecchio, but the Victorians were to have the last word as Wenzel-Halls capitalised upon some hesitant defending to fire home in a crowded box.
Match Details
Western United 6 (Wales 25′, 27′, 45+3′, Pierias 34′, Prijovic (pen) 52′, Wenzel-Halls 83′) Perth Glory 0
Half-time: 4-0
UTAS Stadium, Launceston
Attendance: 2231
Referee: Ben Abraham
Western United: 1.Jamie YOUNG (GK), 4.Leo LACROIX, 5.Dylan PIERIAS (26.Nicolas MILANOVIC 68′), 6.Tomoki IMAI, 8.Lachlan WALES (31.Adisu BAYEW 68′), 10.Ateven LUSTICA, 11.Connor PAIN (27.Jerry SKOTADIS 80′), 17.Ben GARUCCIO, 44.Nikolai TOPOR-STANLEY (C), 88.Neil KILKENNY (16.Rene KRHIN 61′), 99.Aleksandar PRIJOVIC (9.Dylan WENZEL-HALLS 61′)
Substitutes not used: 33.Benjamin COLLINS, 37.Ryan SCOTT (GK)
Yellow Cards: None
Red Cards: None
Perth Glory: 33.Liam REDDY (GK) (C), 18.Daniel STYNES (36.Joseph FORDE 46′), 19.Callum TIMMINS, 21.Antonee BURKE-GILROY (25.Jacob YOUNG 53′), 22.Josh RAWLINS, 24.Pacifique NIYONGABIRE (47.Tyler VECCHIO 46′), 26.Giordano COLLI (42.Josh ANASMO 64′), 29.Darryl LACHMAN, 32.Aidan COYNE, 37.Jacob MUIR, 38.Ciaran BRAMWELL (41.Chris DONNELL 64′)
Substitutes not used: 12.Cameron COOK (GK), 23.Mitch OXBORROW,
Yellow Cards: Colli
Red Cards: None
#OneGlory
