By JARROD POTTER
DANDENONG Thunder faithful were treated to an insipid performance from their limited view on the fence line of the Dandenong Bypass as the Thunder was routed 0-3 by Bentleigh Greens.
With the first game of the Thunder’s lock-out in effect, around 40 die-hards stood on the fence to watch a lacklustre performance from Chris Taylor’s charges.
With captain Shane Rexhepi on his honeymoon and stand-in skipper Luke Kearney shown a red-card in the 48th minute for a double-foot slide tackle, the Thunder was reduced to 10 men. In a strange turn, the Thunder lifted after Kearney left the field, holding their own and creating chances up forward via Nate Foster and the run of subs Feston Azizi and Zac Walker.
An early brace of goals from David Stirton led the Thunder to defeat’s door, before the icing on top of a horrible afternoon came from the boot of former Thunder striker Luke Sherbonto made it a three-goal deficit.
Best positives from the afternoon came from in the defensive end, as Bryan Bran and Safa Faisal endured wave after wave of the Bentleigh assault.
“As much as I think Bentleigh is a good side, I think we were very, very poor today (Saturday),” Thunder coach Taylor said.
“It’s probably the worst I’ve seen from them in the last year and a bit
“The boys probably played for 50 minutes – after the send-off I think we showed a bit of character and looked determined.
“When we went down to 10 men we showed a bit – Nate on the left showed a bit – I thought Topper (Steven Topalovic) and Iqqy (Iqbal Jawadi) were excellent in midfield, but we were giving away goals – we didn’t do that last year.”
With Dandenong already starting the season on negative points, owing to the stipulations of the FFV punishment, Taylor was blunt about this week’s match against Richmond.
“That becomes a relegation battle – that’s the pure fact about it, we’re on minus two points, top of the table is on six points,” Taylor said.
“It’s relegation.”
Their second of five lock-out matches, the Thunder hosts Richmond on Saturday from 3pm.
