Thunder strikes back

DANDENONG Thunder bounced back in the best possible fashion from its first defeat of the Victorian Premier League season with a huge 5-1 victory against Green Gully on Sunday.
The two teams played a catch-up match after their round 14 clash in June was cancelled halfway through due to a floodlight failure at George Andrews Reserve.
Dandenong took the lead in the seventh minute with Sam Bailey beating the defence, but Green Gully hit back immediately after through Matthew Saunders, tying the game at 1-1.
The teams fought out an even battle over the next 15 minutes, before Thunder striker Joe Di Iorio worked his way into the game. Di Iorio nailed the first of his three goals for the game at the 25-minute mark to give Dandenong the lead, and the side never looked back. The hat-trick hero struck again just after half-time, Veton Korcarevski added another six minutes later and Di Iorio completed the rout at the 72-minute mark with his third, putting the finishing touch on a dark day for Green Gully. Di Iorio’s three goals put him in equal-second place in the running for the Golden Boot with 10 goals for the season, one behind leader Osagie Ederaro, from Heidelberg. Dandenong entered the game following its maiden defeat at the hands of Hume City a week earlier, though coach Stuart Munro said that played little part in motivating his team.
“Even after the defeat we never even spoke about it, not once did we mention it,” he said. “Maybe the players themselves, it’s been a long time since they’ve lost a game, maybe they felt they had something to prove to try and get back on track again.” Munro noted his side had three big changes from the Hume City game, with Marcus Stergiopoulos, Korcarevski and Aron Wilford returning to the pitch.
The win restores Dandenong’s eight-point buffer at the top of the table, ahead of South Melbourne in second, with Hume City a further two points back in third. This Saturday Dandenong takes on the Sunshine Georgies at George Andrews Reserve, with the Georgies on a hot streak, unbeaten since the last time the two teams met back 11 rounds ago.