Toukley 1 – 2 Ourimbah
This week, our Division One Match of the Round took place at Harry Moore Oval, where two winners from the men’s round 2 fixtures faced off as Toukley welcomed Ourimbah.
It was a tense and niggly affair that kept the referee Hugo Fonseca busy throughout, and it ultimately finished with a late goal for the visitors sending them home victorious.
The match started with Toukley coming out aggressively, looking to play out from the back and develop their attacks down the wings.
This mindset almost gave them an early lead when Zachary Hewitt found himself through on goal and around Ourimbah keeper Drew Ryan-Lawther, but he took it too wide and couldn’t get a shot off before the defence made it to him to clear.
At this stage of the game, Ourimbah was content to concede these possessions, opting to counter them rapidly, but the game didn’t stay this way for long.
After a series of freekicks went Toukley’s way and nothing came of them, Ourimbah began to change gears, and their true game plan became more apparent.
Ourimbah began to attack through one main focal point: their striker, Noah Wharton. Countless times throughout the game, he received the ball centrally with his back to the defence and quickly dispersed it to runners wide on either side of him.
When this started, Toukley couldn’t contain it and plays like this led to multiple strong Ourimbah movements. One of their best came when Wharton got it to Alex Bauer on his left, who sprinted down the line and put in a ball that came so close to Jacob Gilbert, who came in from the right wing. Only for Gilbert to go down in the box and Fonseca to wave away the penalty shout.
This trio was involved in every single one of Ourimbah’s first-half attacks. They created chances but could never find quality finishes, with almost all their best opportunities sailing wide or over the bar, rarely troubling Robert Ryan in the Toukley net.
Soon after this Ourimbah attacking threat emerged, it became apparent that Toukley were struggling to transition into attack as they tried to play it out.
The Ourimbah press activated almost instantly after any of their possessions broke down, and Toukley couldn’t string the passes together to break it. This successful press gifted Ourimbah the best chance of the first half.
Just before halftime, Wharton found himself through on goal after the ball was stolen in midfield and put through to him.
It was a golden opportunity to take the lead, but Ryan’s reflexes in goal proved valuable. He charged out and made himself big to deliver the best save of the half as Wharton failed to get it past him, keeping it 0-0 into halftime.
The second half started similarly for Toukley, with Hewitt earning a free kick in a dangerous position just outside the box after being fouled by Ourimbah centre-back Blake Small, who received a yellow card for the offence, but when Phillip Watson stepped up to take it, he could only put it wide.
Then, more of the same began to play out, as Wharton started to pull the strings and create attack after attack, and despite a renewed effort from the boys in yellow to beat the Ourimbah press, something had to give, and it didn’t go Toukley’s way.
In another one of their rapid attacking transitions, Phillip Holmes in the Ourimbah midfield put in a lovely pass to Bauer on the left wing. Bauer attempted to cut past his defender into the box and was fouled in the process just as he entered it, and Fonesca didn’t hesitate to award a penalty.
Wharton stepped up and produced a picture-perfect penalty kick into the top right corner, leaving Ryan with no chance of saving it, finally making it 1-0.
Toukley was now struggling to find an answer to going behind, but they did stick to a plan, that plan being to attack almost exclusively through Watson on their right wing. This was largely due to the strong performance of William Bowden as Ourimbah’s right-back, who confidently shut down anything that came his way, almost forcing Toukley to play down the right, away from him.
However, it wasn’t working. Wharton soon had another 1-1 chance after Joshua-Adam Fletcher put in a ball that the Toukley defence couldn’t deal with and allowed him through on goal, but Ryan again got in the way of it through sheer speed to keep Toukley only one down.
And what a save it proved to be because not long later, Toukley finally got their chance to make it 1-1.
A long ball from midfield seemed destined to fall to Toukley substitute striker Riley O’Connell, with only Small tussling with him for the ball to stop him. As they contested for it, Small’s arm struck the ball off its path to O’Connell just as it entered the box, and in that instant, the game was flipped on its head. Not only was a penalty awarded, but Small was also sent off for accruing a second yellow card. Suddenly, Toukley were handed the ultimate lifeline.
Thomas Carlson took the penalty and put it away just as well as Wharton did at the other end; this time, it was the bottom left corner, but it remained equally unsavable for Ryan-Lawther.
From here, the game became frantic; with just over 10 minutes to go in regulation time, both teams pushed hard to find a winner, Ourimbah not taking a backward step despite being down to 10 men and Toukley doing everything they could to exploit their one-man advantage.
But with both teams going so hard, clear-cut chances seemed impossible, and for a few minutes, the game was a war in the midfield. Neither side willing to give an inch, but both very aware that if they did, they would lose the game. Once again, it felt like something had to give, and once again, it went Ourimbah’s way.
As the ball bounced around the midfield, Toukley’s Max Hewitt put in a sliding challenge and gave away a foul halfway inside his own half. Fletcher stepped up to take it for Ourimbah, and in a game where numerous freekicks amounted to nothing, it felt like this would be another win for the defenders, but Fletcher’s ball in was the best of the day.
It found the head of Wharton, who got the slightest touch on it to lay it off to his left where Spencer Wharton was on the spot faster than the scrambling Toukley defence and tapped it in from just in front of the line, making it 2-1 to Ourimbah.
With that, the valiant Toukley attempts to complete a comeback ended, with them only managing one final long throw into the box before Fonesca called full-time and victory for Ourimbah.
Talking to both coaches showed that both were happy to stay in the fight in the physical fixture.
“What I was pleased about is that even when we went down to ten men, we still wanted to play football, and I think that’s why we were able to get that second goal from the set piece”, said Ourimbah coach Andy O’Bryan.
Toukley coach Peter Ward had a similar view. He was proud of his team’s efforts against a team widely believed to be a powerhouse this season.
“I was happy with the performance against a team that’s been earmarked as one of the teams to beat,” Ward said.
“It was a really gritty game, and we were just unlucky to concede just before injury time”.
Match Official – Hugo Fonseca
Written by Mark Goodyear
Men’s Division 1 Results –
Women’s Division 1 Results –
