Thunder on a roll

By JARROD POTTER
DANDENONG Thunder took the points over Hume City in their Saturday night league match-up before smashing Altona Magic in their State Knockout Cup tie on Monday night.
In their league match against Hume City, the Thunder missed their chances in their 1-0 victory, but also couldn’t draw any help from the referees following a couple of very contentious decisions.
Nate Foster was practically spear-tackled by Hume goalkeeper Chris Oldfield inside the far edge of the box at the 25-minute mark, yet Oldfield escaped with a yellow card and a spot kick that sailed wide right instead of a rightful Thunder penalty.
The Thunder went about their business after that, with Craig Elvin delivering a fantastic long ball to Sean McIlroy, who chipped it into the box and found Luke Sherbon unmarked. Sherbon drilled his 10th goal of the season in what turned out to be the match-winner.
Tempers started to fray on the pitch in the second half, with a bit of jumper-pulling and pushing from both sides and that was the only action of the second half as the game ground out to a 1-0 finish.
“I didn’t think it was pretty out there by a long shot,” Dandenong coach Chris Taylor said.
“I thought we ground it out well – we had the bulk of the chances and were the more dominant side.
“The issue is always going to be when we miss chances we’re going to struggle to put sides away – If we had have put the second goal away it would have been a different story.”
The result maintains Dandenong’s lead at the top of the league table and they will be looking to stretch their lead with a match against Melbourne Knights next Sunday.
On Monday night, Dandenong Thunder made sure the Altona Magic stood no chance of advancing to the final six of the State Knockout Cup – putting a mostly full strength side on the park for the first time this season in the competition and sending off Altona with a 4-0 victory.
The nearly full strength Thunder thumped Altona at all stoppages and delivered three first half goals. Nate Foster’s cross into goal was deflected by an Altona defender to give Dandenong the early lead.
From there Iqi Jawadi, Hamlet Armenian and Sherbon added the death blows to finish out the four-goal victory.
“We wanted to start with the strongest side as possible and try to progress in the Cup competition,” Taylor said.
“I think the most important thing for us is the league – it’s nice to do well in the Cup but it’s secondary to what’s going on in the league at the moment.
“It was nice to get a solid result and not get any injuries, so it was positive on both fronts.”
The Thunder faces the Melbourne Knights away on Sunday at 3pm.