The most important thing about Saturday night’s 2-1 come from behind victory over Perth Glory was that Macarthur FC fought every inch of the way for the three premiership points.
After going behind 1-0 one hour into the match, the Bulls could have thrown in the towel.
But energised after some savvy substitutions by new head coach Sasa Ognenovski, they started dominating the match for the next 30 minutes.
They won a penalty in the 80th minute, and after waiting more than two minutes for VAR confirmation, new Bulls signing Ryan Fraser stepped up to the plate.
The Glory keeper dived to his right, and that’s where Fraser hit the ball after a stop-start approach.
Well, Lady Luck was on the Bulls side on Saturday night – after another couple of minutes’ delay, the referee ruled there was interference and the penalty was to be taken again.
This time Fraser – with a more fluid runup – didn’t miss, and the Bulls were finally on the scoreboard.
Just three minutes later, Fraser delivered a beautiful, swinging cross from the right, and there to head it into the back of the net was Bulls central defender Jon Aspropotamitis, who celebrated with his teammates like it was 1999.
The Bulls had to do a bit of desperate defending for the next few minutes to protect their lead, and they did exactly that.
Indeed, their dogged effort in defence was one of the things that impressed the new coach.
“I liked how in defence they never gave up and chased every ball; it was good to see,’’ Ognenovski said in response to a question from the South West Voice during the post match media conference in the bowels of the western stand of Campbelltown Stadium.
Macarthur FC travel to Newcastle this coming weekend to take on the Jets in round two of the A-League. The Saturday, October 24 match will kick off at 3pm.
A week later they’re back home to host Western Sydney Wanderers in what should be a blockbuster at Campbelltown Stadium.
