Photo: Olympia midfielder Jordan Scott scored twice to fraw his side level against Kingborough [PlessPix]
Olympia Warriors midfielder Jordan Scott proved his team’s
saviour in last Saturday’s last-gasp 3-2 away win over Kingborough Lions United
at Lightwood Park.
Olympia trailed 2-0 with two minutes of normal time remaining.
It was then that Scott came into his own, scoring twice
in three minutes to make it 2-2.
Five minutes into stoppage time, Olympia were awarded a
penalty and Jack Ryan converted to give the visitors an unlikely victory and 3
precious points.
“To be honest, I didn’t think we were going to get
anything the way the game was going,” Scott said.
“There was no chance of us even scoring, never mind three
in six minutes.
“Yeah, it was pretty incredible. Certainly, the greatest thing I’ve been
involved in in terms of a soccer game. I’m pretty sure you won’t see much of that
going on for a long while.
“It was good.”
Referee Stratos Plomaritis only handled the first half as
he was called away because of his father’s ailing health.
Ivan Jozeljic, the senior assistant referee, took over
for the second half, but Scott didn’t think the change of official made any difference.
“To be honest, I don’t think it makes much of a
difference,” he said.
“They’re all the same.
They make the same decisions and I’m sure they all abide by the same
rules. There was no difference for us.
“We knew the job that we had to do going into the second
half and the ref didn’t really make much of a difference at all, I’d say.”
Scott was in danger of being substituted during the second
half, but Olympia coach Rob Clarke decided to keep him on.
“To be honest, I’m not surprised that he was thinking of
substituting me because I might as well have had a Kingborough shirt on. I was terrible.
“I suppose he showed some faith in me by leaving me on
and I’m glad I delivered the goods for him because it was a massively important
victory for us and it keeps us in the chase and it was definitely the three
points we needed, so I’m grateful to him for leaving me on and I’m sure he’s
grateful he left me on as well.”
Photo: Jordan Scott is still scratching his head as to how Olympia fought back against Lions to win with three late goals [PlessPix]
Scott was astounded by his side’s comeback.
“I wouldn’t say it was easy,” he said. “I think once we got one, the boys sensed
that they [Kingborough] were panicking a bit and it was more of a belief.
“We’ve had that all season. We’ve scored a couple of late goals,
especially the one against South, and that’s driven us on to believe that the
game’s not over until it’s actually over.
“I think once we got one, and then we got the second one,
I think you could sense that we could definitely nick something.
“To be fair, I think the penalty was a harsh decision,
but we’ll take it. I’m just glad we
finally got the three points and it was good to get over the line in the way
that we did. It was good.”
Scott believes that Olympia are in with a chance of the title
despite being 2 points adrift of Devonport, who have a game in hand, which, if
they win, would blow out their lead to 5 points.
“If you don’t believe that you’re going to win the league
title after that happens, I don’t know what more you need to give you the
belief,” Scott opined.
“It was a massively important win for us given the circumstances.
I think that’s certainly going to drive
us on now and make us believe that we can definitely, definitely win the
league.
“We’re definitely not out of it. I’d say we’ve still got a little bit of
catching up to do, but we’ve still got to play Devonport and, hopefully,
someone else can give us a bit of help along the way.”
Scott thinks that Devonport are now under pressure and
are feeling the heat.
“I hope so, and I’m pretty sure they will be feeling a
bit of heat now,” he said.
“I think we keep knocking on the door and they keep
trying to shrug us off and we’re not going away. If I was in their position, I would
definitely be feeling the heat.”
Scott is an expert at taking free-kicks and it was his
deflected free-kick that made the score 2-2 on Saturday night.
“I spend hours and hours throughout the week practising
free-kicks and there was no chance anyone else would take it,” Scott said.
“That was my time and I’m glad Keenan [Douce] helped me
put it in the goal. It was good to see
it go in the back of the net. I was just
relieved to get the win more than anything.”
The penalty in the 5th minute of stoppage time
was do or die for Olympia and they needed to score it win the match.
Scott said there was never any possibility of him taking
it to bag his hat-trick.
“Jack’s [Ryan] the penalty taker,” he said. “That’s him.
“That’s written on the ball before the game. Any penalty, in any circumstance, Jack takes
it, and I was more than happy for the big man to step up and put it in. It was never in doubt.”
Olympia’s next game is this Friday night at 8.15pm at
Warrior Park when they host Glenorchy Knights.
2 comments:
good write up Walter, thank you.
Always good as I say to get the players perspective on things, right from the horse's mouth so to say.
However I noticed within the article that Jordan had said in relation to the change of referee half way through the game "...the ref didn't make much of a difference at all, I'd say" Then goes on later to say "....to be fair, I think the penalty was a harsh decision...".
???
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