Champions Queanbeyan City suffered defeat heading into the finals as they went down to a 3-1 loss against Wagga City Wanderers in the Riverina in Round 21. City shuffled the pack for the trip to Gissing Oval and never recovered from a poor start in which the Wanderers took control of proceedings.
Morris Kadzola moved onto double figures for goals for the season with the opener on sixteen minutes and when Jacob Ochieng doubled the lead just past the half-hour mark, the home side were in control of proceedings.
That only improved further when Maxwell Prest made it 3-0 close to the half-time whistle as Wanderers found a gear that has eluded them in the latter half of the campaign and which, had they carried on the good form of the nascent weeks of the year, may have seen them finish higher.
Queanbeyan wouldn’t have been too concerned but managed to regroup after the interval and pulled one back with twenty minutes to play via a 26th goal of the season from ace striker Niko Abot. However, it was Wanderers day, but Queanbeyan’s year.
ANU FC made sure of second place and a shot at Queanbeyan City in the Qualification Final as they made short work of Canberra Juventus in their last match of the season, winning 4-1 at ANU South to end a good work in which they netted eight goals in winning two from two.
The two protagonists looked evenly matched until a mad last eight minutes of the half in which there were four goals scored. Jacob Hart opened the scoring for ANU FC in the 37th minute and doubled his and his team’s tally three minutes later with the eighth goal of the campaign.
Adrian Macor pulled one back moments later, his personal haul moving onto half-a-dozen, but Hassan Alnuwaysir restored the two-goal lead before the break with his twelfth of the year. A late fourth, and a second in successive matches for Jan Wojna, sealed the win ahead of the finals jamboree.
Belconnen United had to settle for third place on the table, and a meeting with Brindabella Blues in the Elimination Final, but head into that match on a high note after inflicting a 5-1 hammering on White Eagles, a hat-trick from Abraham Kemp being the highlight.
There was little indication of the goal rampage to follow as it took the home side twenty-seven minutes to make the breakthrough, but when they did there was little surprise that it was Dustin Wells who did so, the evergreen hitman bagging a thirteenth league goal of the year.
The Blue Devils netted two more before half-time as Kemp got his personal scoring afternoon underway, and there was more to come in the second stanza as Jake Bishop struck the fourth, before Kemp completed his treble eight minutes later. A stoppage time own goal from Sebastian Ciminelli was of scant consolation to the well-beaten Eagles.
West Canberra Wanderers had the ignominy of finishing bottom of the table, and therefore in danger of facing successive relegations, as they ended their season with a disappointing 0-2 home loss to Brindabella Blues at Melrose Synthetic, a seventeenth defeat of the season.
In truth any chance the Wanderers had of pulling off a win against a team in the top four and preparing for their season defining Elimination Final clash with Belconnen United, disappeared inside a dozen minutes via a maiden goal of the campaign for Denis Zimba who finished well.
The Wanderers pushed for an equaliser but were unable to make the breakthrough past a resilient Blues defence and the visiting team were able to secure the victory with a second goal twenty-one minutes from the final whistle as Henry Wilks found room to make it 2-0 and raise Brindabella hopes ahead of their huge finals clash.
RESULTS
ROUND 21
31 August
Wagga City Wanderers 3 (Kadzola 16’, Ochieng 31’, Prest 42’) Queanbeyan City 1 (Abot 70’)
ANU FC 4 (Hart 37’, 40’, Alnuwaysir 45’, Wojna 90+2’) Canberra Juventus 1 (Macor 41’)
West Canberra Wanderers 0 Brindabella Blues 2 (Zimba 12’, Wilks 69’)
Belconnen United 5 (Wells 27’, Kemp 32’, 44’, 68’, Bishop 60’) White Eagles 1 (Ciminelli 90+1’ (og))
TABLE
| P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | PTS | ||
| 1 | Queanbeyan City (P) | 21 | 15 | 4 | 3 | 65 | 14 | +51 | 47 |
| 2 | ANU FC | 21 | 14 | 3 | 4 | 59 | 24 | +35 | 45 |
| 3 | Belconnen United | 21 | 13 | 5 | 3 | 65 | 21 | +44 | 44 |
| 4 | Brindabella Blues | 21 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 47 | 30 | +17 | 39 |
| 5 | Wagga City Wanderers | 21 | 7 | 4 | 10 | 39 | 47 | -8 | 25 |
| 6 | Canberra Juventus | 21 | 6 | 2 | 13 | 24 | 50 | -26 | 20 |
| 7 | White Eagles | 21 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 16 | 69 | -53 | 10 |
| 8 | West Canberra Wanderers | 21 | 2 | 2 | 17 | 21 | 81 | -60 | 8 |
TOP SCORERS
26: Nico ABOT (Queanbeyan City)
18: Jack GIBSON (ANU FC)
13: Dustin WELLS (Belconnen United)
12: Hassan ALNUWAYSIR (ANU FC)
11: Jake BISHOP (Belconnen United)
10: Abderrahim DEALLAHI (Queanbeyan City), Morris KADZOLA (Wagga City Wanderers), Abraham KEMP (Belconnen United), Curtis SCHAEFFER (Brindabella Blues)
9: David REITSTATTER (Belconnen United)
8: Jacob HART (ANU FC)
7: Nathan DUCK (Canberra Juventus), Riley WILLIAMS (Brindabella Blues), Ollie WITRZENS (Brindabella Blues), Thomas YONGAI (Wagga City Wanderers), Own GOALS
6: Nahuel GUERRERO (Queanbeyan City), Adrian MACOR (Canberra Juventus), Babin PAUDYAL (Belconnen United), Zac STEELE (Wagga City Wanderers)
5: Harry BILLINGTON (Belconnen United), Baxter DONOHOE (West Canberra Wanderers), Ethan KRUG (ANU FC), Virgil MOUTAUD (West Canberra Wanderers)
4: Misko NAUMOSKI (Queanbeyan City), Henry WILKS (Brindabella Blues), Mohammed YANSANEH (Queanbeyan City)
3: Riley ANGELOSANTE (White Eagles), Gabriel AYUEL (Queanbeyan City), Cuneyt CAGLAR (Brindabella Blues), Zac CHADWICK (ANU FC), Liam CRISTOFANI (West Canberra Wanderers), Jayde JAMES-WARD (Belconnen United), Kade LYONS (Wagga City Wanderers), Braulio MELO (White Eagles), Alasdair MOORE (ANU FC), Michael NELSON (Brindabella Blues), Marko SAVKOVIC (Queanbeyan City), Luke VALLONE (Belconnen United), Tao WANG (ANU FC)
2: Deng ALEER DENG (Brindabella Blues), Seth BONNET (Queanbeyan City), Adam BROOKS (Canberra Juventus), Frazer BURNS (Canberra Juventus), Bryce FALEPAU (Wagga City Wanderers), Leo HADLEY (ANU FC), Samson LUCAS (Wagga City Wanderers), Max MOTTL (ANU FC), Jacob OCHIENG (Wagga City Wanderers), Pedro PEREIRA (White Eagles), Vasko PETROVSKI (Queanbeyan City), Maxwell PREST (Wagga City Wanderers), Steven SRBINOSKI (Queanbeyan City), Jan WOJNA (ANU FC)
1: Wyatt ADAM (Wagga City Wanderers), David CARDER (Belconnen United), Tom COSENTINI (Canberra Juventus), Mitchell COTTER (West Canberra Wanderers), Lachlan DENLEY (White Eagles), Filip DUCKINOSKI (West Canberra Wanderers), Daniel FELIZZI (Brindabella Blues), Daniel FOX (West Canberra Wanderers), Marcus GRZIC (White Eagles), Clayton GUNNING (West Canberra Wanderers), Josh HICKMAN (White Eagles), Jack JANKE (Belconnen United), Bojan JANKULOSKI (West Canberra Wanderers), Finley JENKINS (Wagga City Wanderers), Deakin JEWELL (Belconnen United), Steven KRESKAS (Queanbeyan City), Jiachan LANG (ANU FC), Owen LEARMONTH (Brindabella Blues),Tony MADDAFARI (Canberra Juventus), Goran MILUTINOVIC (White Eagles), Tim NGUYEN (Belconnen United), Fahad RAMADHAN (Wagga City Wanderers), Nicholas ROUFAGALIS (Canberra Juventus), Mark SHIELDS (Queanbeyan City), Nathan SINGH, Naser SMOQY (Wagga City Wanderers), Ethan STAMATIS (West Canberra Wanderers), Nashwan SULAIMAN (Wagga City Wanderers), Owen STEPHENSON (West Canberra Wanderers), Jai TEIN (Canberra Juventus), Reece UPTON (White Eagles), Liam VICKERS (White Eagles), Isaac WEEKLEY (Brindabella Blues), Seth WRIGHT (West Canberra Wanderers), Denis ZIMBA (Brindabella Blues)
