A stunning late comeback from Dandenong City saw the club draw 3-3 with South Melbourne in round 21 of the NPL.
At Frank Holohan Soccer Complex, the visitors took the first lead of the evening through a brilliant and blistering counterattack off a City turnover.
Ren Nagamatsu dribbled down the right wing and managed to get inside the box before quickly squaring it to Maximilian Mikkola.
Mikkola flicked it with pace, giving Pierce Clark no chance to react and the ball rattled the back of the net.
South Melbourne doubled its lead in the 27th minute when a deflected corner sat nicely for Nagamatsu who showed excellent athleticism to volley it home from close range.
However, Dandenong drew one back almost immediately from the kick-off, with Jackson Lino being brought down and fouled in City’s forward half.
On the ensuing free kick, Diego Cuba curled in one of the goals of the season, bending the long-range shot across goal and into the top left corner.
The first half had one more twist, with South Melbourne adding a third via a stoppage time corner.
In an extremely similar fashion to Nagamatsu’s goal, the corner ball was brought to the ground and volleyed home, this time by Cooper Halfpenny.
At halftime, Dandenong had managed five shots on target to the visitors’ six.
For most of the second half, it seemed South Melbourne would be taking the three points and closing out the game before City launched onto a promising attack in the 86th minute.
Jamie Latham played the ball out to the left and found Yagoub Mustafa.
Mustafa cut back and fired a low cross into the penalty area, where Kenjok Athiu was waiting to turn it in from close range.
Still a goal down with just minutes remaining, Dandenong fired in a long pass off a free kick and searched for a clutch-time equaliser.
Athiu intentionally headed the ball down to space where Corey Sewell lurked, and Sewell fired an absolute rocket on the half-volley that flew into the net.
An unbelievable late leveller was found and City had grabbed a point at the death.
The result pushed Dandenong into sixth on the table with an away fixture against second-placed Avondale up next.
