Oakleigh Cannons held at the Gully

Eighth placed Green Gully hosted top of the table Oakleigh Cannons on Saturday in what was a must win game for the Cavaliers if they were to keep in touch with the finals race.

Former Melbourne Victory and North Queensland Fury player Simon Storey made his first start for Gully since signing some weeks back, whilst Oakleigh fielded an extremely strong line up including former Victory players Ricky Diaco, James Robinson, Ramazan Tavsancioglu and former Glory player James Downey.

The match started under perfect conditions but as the wind picked up so did the match. Green Gully matched Oakleigh in the midfield where the Cannons have been so strong all year and were unlucky not to take the lead after eight minutes when a Diaco strike hit both posts.

Oakleigh managed to take a stranglehold on possession and were rewarded after 40 minutes when Jimmy Downey sliced through the Green Gully defense and cooly put the ball past 'keeper Roganovic who has been in fine form of late.

At half time the punters were treated to some B- side Snoop Dogg over the loud speakers which seemed to fire the locals up as they came out swinging. A horrible offside call which had Hayne in on goal and then a Storey strike which hit the crossbar kept the Cavaliers frustrated until a 74 minute substitution by Ljubo Lapsanky to bring former Tasmanian Mathew Sanders (The Colonel) on reaped rewards one minute later when he scored with his first touch of the game.

The remainder of the game was tightly fought out with no team really pressing for the winner, rather sitting back nervously not wanting to make a mistake.

Scores remained at 1-1 keeping Oakleigh on-top (pending Heidelberg's result on Sunday) and Green Gully in 7th position, three points adrift of fifth.

Match Details

Green Gully 1-1 Oakleigh Cannons.

Scorers: Downey 40' (Oakleigh), Sanders 74' (Gully).

Yellows: Bran 30', Milovanovic 54', Downey 76' (Oakleigh).

Green Gully: 1. Nikola ROGANOVIC, 2. Daniel JONES, 4. Cameron DRAKE, 7. Jeffrey FLEMING, 8. Jason HAYNE, 9. Brent FISHER, 10. Graham HOCKLESS, 14. Simon STOREY, 15. Hamid BASMA, 16. Mile MEDJEDOVIC, 19. Johnathon MUNOZ.

Subs: 23. Mason INTERLANDI, 11. Pasquale VIZZARI, 12. Mathew SANDERS, 17. Andy VARGAS, 20. Joshua PUGH.

Oakleigh Cannons: 7. Bonel OBRADOVIC, 23. Anthony BRAN, 8. James ROBINSON, 19. Dane MILOVANOVIC, 22. James DOWNEY, 2. James CUMMING, 10. Ricky DIACO, 35. Daniel NEESHAM, 6. Ramazan TAVSANCIOGLU, 13. Billy DAMIANOS, 18. Stephen HATZIKOSTAS.

Subs: 17. Shaun ONTONG, 16. Frankie LAGANA, 12. Luke WALKER, 14. Melvin BECKETT, 25. Craig GOODWIN.