North Beach could not turn their fortune around in round three of the Amateur Division One, with a 6-3 home defeat to Stirling Panthers.
Beach started the half on top of the game, dominating most of the possession in the opening minutes.
It took a quarter of an hour to find the breakthrough with a penalty awarded to Beach after a Ross Westwood run caught the Stirling defence napping.
Benny Reynolds took the spot-kick, and as expected, put it away to make it 1-0 to the Beach early on.
Beach continued with the same possession play after scoring and pressed when they lost the ball.
Almost 10-minutes after the opening goal, a mistake at the back gifted Stirling the equaliser.
After conceding the sloppy goal, a turbulent 15-minutes ensued, with another mistake gifting Stirling another goal and then an error leading to a penalty making it 3-1.
Beach went into half-time 3-1 down and needed to cut out the errors leading to poor goals.
The second half started just as the first had ended, and within the first 10-minutes, Stirling scored twice, making it 5-1.
There were quite a few cards in the game, and Luke Wearing saw one too many and copped Beach’s first red card of the season.
Shortly after, Stirling scored their sixth, and there was now a mountain for Beach to climb.
Being down to 10 men with a five-goal difference was not ideal, but a last-ditch attempt to close the gap saw Reynolds and Westwood get two late consolation goals to make the final score 6-3.
Analysis
Minor errors in dangerous places were the theme of today’s loss. In possession, Beach was good but too often tried to play through the Stirling players, leading to turnovers in bad positions. As expected, Stirling punished these mistakes.
Otherwise, there wasn’t much issue with Beach’s play. They were on top for mostly all of the first half, and the goals conceded were blips in a very dominant display. The second-half saw the performance slump a little, but Beach didn’t give up and clawed back the goal difference.
East Perth is next, and it is expected to be a hard battle.
Team news
Lineup: Hughes, Deam. Kelliher, Wearing, Felstead, Richings, K. Parker, Di Carlo, R. Westwood, Reynolds, Aitken
Subs: Catalfamo, Etheridge, A. Westwood, Cross
Ross Westwood returned from injury, which saw him slot right back into the starting lineup. Jake Dean came in for Aaron Roberts, and David Kelliher dropped into centre-half, replacing Aaron Persse. Harry Richings made his first start of the season with Ali Westwood dropping to the bench.
Other than that, it was an unchanged starting lineup from the game against Belmont.
Logan Cross was named in the First Team squad for the first time this year and was an unused substitute, having played in the Reserves game beforehand.
Around the grounds
Men’s
NB Reserves 5-0 Stirling Panthers
CAFC Lions 3-2 NB 3’s (Metro Nth Div 3)
Hillarys 2-2 NB Masters (Nth Div 2)
Dianella – NB O45’S (North A)
Women’s
Joondalup United 7-2 NB 1’s (Metro Nth Div 1)
Joondalup City – NB 2’s (Metro Nth Div 3)