IPL trio produce solid performance against Mariners

Dylan Arvela
3 min readOct 5, 2018

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Okada was arguably the Wolves best player on the night. (Photo — Pedro Garcia)

Wollongong Wolves handed debuts to three Illawarra Premier League players in their valiant 3–1 trail defeat to A-League outfit Central Coast Mariners at Win Stadium on Friday night. Corrimal wideman Takeru Okada was the standout performer while Bulli duo Harry Callahan and Guy Knight both saw minutes in the second half less than three weeks after their Grand Final triumph at the same venue.

The home side hadn’t played since the second weekend of August, however, they measured up well against the Mariners in the early stages. Darcy Madden made the strong start count with a smart solo run leading to the opening goal in the 24th minute.

The goal boosted the Wolves confidence and Okada injected himself into the match only two minutes later with a wicked 20-metre half volley thundering off the right post — the ball would bounce off the back of goalkeeper Ben Kennedy who was lucky it didn’t roll into the open goal.

Central Coast equalised in the 40th minute after Conner Pain cut back to Michael McGlinchey to launch into the top left corner from close range. Wollongong came close to getting back in front with trialist Thomas James latching onto a long before a jink and hit saw the ball rocket into the right post for the second time.

The Mariners scurried up the other end and produced a near carbon copy of their first goal with Ross McCormack tucking the ball back for Pain to finish seconds before the half time whistle.

Callahan played high on the right in the second half. (Photo — Pedro Garcia)

Harry Callahan was brought on to start the second half, he was positioned on the right flank and he was joined less than 10 minutes later by his former Bulli skipper Guy Knight who came on at left back. Both players put in commendable showings without doing anything sensational, however, Central Coast’s third goal came down Knight’s side with local boy Jordan Murray whipping in a low cross for Matt Simon to tap home in the 69th minute.

Second half substitute Murray was intrusmental in the final goal of the match. (Photo — Pedro Garcia)

The final stages of the match left little to write home about with the Mariners content to sit on their two-goal lead with the match finishing 3–1 in front of 2691 spectators who braved the crisp October evening.

Knight came on to play the final 35 minutes at left back. (Photo — Pedro Garcia)

Jordan Nikolovski and James Carli who broke into the IPL in 2017 also saw an hour and 10 minutes respectively while former Cringila forward Stefan Dimoski didn’t make the squad due to illness.

The match was the first for new Wolves boss Luke Wilkshire while it was the last match for the club in 2018. As for the Mariners, they face makeshift representative side ‘Macarthur Sydney South West United’ at Campbelltown Stadium next Friday night before kicking off their A-League campaign away to Brisbane Roar on October 21.

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Dylan Arvela
Dylan Arvela

Written by Dylan Arvela

Journalist, writer, UOW political grad, football lover and author of ‘A Drop in the Ocean: The story of Woonona’s Illawarra Premier League championship’.

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