Murray United again succumb to its round one hoodoo.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Border NPL 2 outfit fell 4-0 to Eastern Lions at La Trobe on Saturday.
Two goals against the run of play – a first half penalty and second half strike, knocked the wind out of Murray who were looking to give captain Ashley Dunn the fairy tale result in his 100th game for the club.
A dominant 20-minute period at the start of the second half produced numerous chances for Murray, with Eastern keeper Keegan Coulter pulling off strong saves from the boot of Ryan Luty and Tom Youngs.
Eastern continued to absorb the pressure and doubled their advantage through Christopher Droutsas in the 62nd minute.
Murray threw numbers forward in a bid to chase a result, but were caught napping in defence with Yianni Toumanidis (74th minute) and Ryan Losty (78th minute) also finding the back of the net to hand the visitors a big victory.
Coach Elliot Jones felt there was too many individuals.
“Everybody tried to do too much, sometimes you can try a bit hard when you go down 2-0 and I thought we were quite disjointed,” Jones said.
“We let ourselves down, we can play a whole lot better than that and we’ve shown it over the summer.
“I felt we put ourselves out there today with a really big pre-season and we were ready to go.
“The first half we were right on top and copped a penalty which gives us a bit of a sucker punch.
“We regrouped at half-time and went out with the intent to work them over.
“I thought the 20 minutes after half-time was really good, we were building and looking like we were going to score and they got one, which was a real sucker punch again.
“From 2-0 down I felt like we dropped our bundle”
With Murray starting the season on minus three points, the result leaves them six off the pace, but it wasn’t a factor for Jones.
“We didn’t even mention it, even over summer,” Jones said.
“It’s there and it is what it is, but we didn’t feel any more pressure to get those points back.
“We put enough pressure on ourselves to get out and have a good start to the year and that wasn’t a good display.
“It doesn’t undo your whole summer having a display like that.”
Striker Zac Walker will return next weekend against Melbourne City after being ruled out with suspension in round one from a fifth yellow card in the final round of 2018.
Earlier in the afternoon, Murray’s under-20s outfit, featured a handful of players 16 years or younger, produced an impressive 3-0 victory against Eastern.
- Receive our daily newsletter straight to your inbox each morning from The Border Mail. Sign up here