By Justin Schwarze
The resilience and patience of Dandenong City has been very impressive with the club running over Melbourne Victory in the second half to claim a 3-1 win at home.
Victory were fortunate to go ahead in the first stage of the match after Dandenong turned the ball over in midfield.
Patrick Wall went on a brilliant individual run, carrying the ball from deep in the half to inside the box, before pulling the shot with not much power.
Pierce Clark was in perfect shape to deal with the attempt, before Jack Webster tried to clear and inadvertently put the ball in the back of the net.
It was a brutal own goal and the City players immediately put their hands on their knees and shook their heads in frustration.
At halftime, Dandenong had fired 10 shots with five on target, yet went into the dressing room down 0-1.
Things dramatically changed in the second half when Jack Mihailidis made an ill-advised tackle on Danny Kim and received his second yellow for the match, resulting in an immediate red.
This brought Melbourne down to 10 men for the remainder of the game.
City finally capitalised in the 60th minute when a smooth through-ball rolled right into the path of Brad Plant who tapped it in to equalise.
Plant made it two 15 minutes later when he unloaded an absolute stunner from outside the box that curled into the top corner.
The powerful strike saw Dandenong hit the front as the game headed into crunch time.
The hosts put the game away in the 83rd minute, when the ball was carried into the box before being squared.
Another touch laid off the ball to Valli Cesnik, who tucked it away at the back post for his first goal of the season.
A much-needed return to form has been revitalising for City, who absolutely punished the man-down defensive unit of Victory.
Dandenong had 28 shots, 13 of which were on target, in an outstanding attacking effort.
In round 14, City travels to face 10th placed St Albans.
