Another season goes by

With the NPLV Grand Final coming up on Sunday and us playing no part in it, we take the time to look back and reflect on what was the 2015 NPLV season.

Our 11th season post NSL saw us in the more favorable of the two familiar places we have been in since re-joining the state leagues. Rather than the excitement of a relegation battle which our good friends down in Geelong are now enjoying, we got to have another crack at something we haven't done in a pretty long time, be crowned champions.

Going into the season there wasn't too much faith from Knights supporters as poor results in practice matches and a 5-0 drubbing by Sydney United in the Friendship Cup a week before the season didn't allow for much of a positive outlook. However with the players at our disposal, I knew that with a bit of time we would be well prepared to kick some ass. Luckily for us we were dealt a more favorable start to our season which allowed us to find out feet (quite quickly it seemed) as we got off to a 5 and 0 start.

The return of star striker Andrew Barisic worked as well as previous years with the striker finding the back of the net most weeks, before moving on to play in Hong Kong. Working just as well was the decision to bring back former junior Josh Brekalo after impressive performances at the Croatian Soccer Tournament in Wollongong, where he enjoyed a stint with his state league side Strathmore Split. The youngster didn't take long to get his name out there after opening the scoring account with an equaliser in Round 1 against the newly promoted Avondale. The same however cannot be said about the return of another former player Adrian Zahra, who struggled to make an impact resulting in his departure in the mid season transfer window, with his poor form likely the result of a horrendous tackle at the hands of Kevin Muscat a few years ago. His replacement Robbie Zadworny comfortably stepped into the role managing to contribute a number of goals and assists almost immediately.

Whilst Zadworny was satisfying Knights fans in the league, previous appearances for North Geelong left him cup tied and with no choice but to sit out the Knights 2015 FFA Cup campaign. A campaign which unfortunately did not reach the heights of the 2014 campaign, as South Melbourne got their revenge after eliminating us with three late goals at Lakeside Stadium. With other fixtures for NPL sides looking fairly 'easier' for that round, one may question whether fixturing the two sides against each other at that stage of the competition was a deliberate attempt at ensuring one of our clubs would not reach the national stage, perhaps even both with one round still remaining before entry to the round of 32 of the FFA Cup.

No Dockerty Cup for the Knights in 2015

Our simultaneous exits from both the Dockerty and FFA Cup allowed us to concentrate solely on the league, something which was done quite well. With Hume and Pascoe Vale at our tails and first place looking well out of reach it appeared to be a battle for 4th place. However favorable results saw us reaching as high as 2nd place with a slight chance of still lifting the premiers plate. But it wasn't meant to be, as a surging South Melbourne picked up the required amount of points to beat us and the rest to it.

With 3rd place a real possibility but no real advantage over finishing 4th, we had the chance to rest a number of senior players allowing some of the youth to prove themselves on the big stage. Whether finishing 3rd or 4th would have made a difference to our finals exit is something that we will never know.

After making the finals twice in a row (with a year in between due to no finals being played in 2014), we also managed to bow out in straight sets twice in a row. Perhaps those three finals matches being played at home and the fact that we haven't one a home finals match in around 20 years has something to do with it? Not sure, but I do hope it's something that will change very soon.

So where does that leave us? Are we happy with the end result? Was the season a success? Was it a failure? To be honest I'm not too sure. I wouldn't call it a success but at the same time I think it was far from a failure. We reached our target of making the finals but fell short of making a return to the national stage in the FFA Cup, something which is probably a little more difficult to achieve now that all the clubs have seen how big of a carrot it can be. Considering we have one of if not the lowest budget out of the clubs that made the finals, and more than likely in the bottom half of the league, I guess we can say that overall we did ok. Perhaps not as ok as South Melbourne who could very well go on to win everything there is to win in Victoria this Sunday, but I wouldn't rather be them. Yeah it's great to win everything, but when it's at the expense of allowing players to walk all over your club, the board lying to members and supporters without them even bothering to question it and not having a social club with the constant question of when you will be evicted, I would rather be us. We are a proud club with proud supporters, and there will always be next year!