Northern Spirit came back to a creditable two-all draw after making up a two-goal deficit against Melbourne Knights at Knights Park last Saturday evening in a game where a Spirit loss would have ended its Finals aspirations.
Spirit was without Pablo Cardozo because of illness, and it seemed his absence would be a major hurdle for Spirit.
But on-loan import Stephen Dobbie came off the bench to score both goals for Spirit within fifteen minutes of his appearance making up for Cardozo's absence. Toto Da Costa had opened for Knights just before the interval, and Kresimir Marusic had extended the lead just after the hour.
As it was, the draw keeps Spirit still in the Finals race, but results elsewhere have to run its way in the last round of the season. Knights confirmed its place in the Finals with the win, and there is now just sixth-position open, with Spirit, Power, South Melbourne, and Marconi the contestants.
"We still need Marconi to do us a favour (by beating South Melbourne in the last round)," said Spirit coach Mick Hickman after the game. "We are still a chance, and I'm quite pleased about that."
It could so easily have ended for Spirit shortly after the hour mark. By then, Knights was two goals up and unthreatened at the back save for the peril its own players placed the team in from time to time with shoddy passing to the midfield. Andy Vargas was chief culprit in this, but the steady head of Socceroo Steve Horvat and the workmanlike performance of the returning Sash Ognenovski was enough to balance the equation.
It took until the end of the first half for Knights to have parlayed its dominance into a lead. Knights had an earlier effort from Da Costa headed off the line by Noel Spencer, but no head could have survived an attempt at stopping the Angolan's opener.
Da Costa's goal came from nowhere - the first most were aware of the danger was when the ball had already been launched on its deadly trajectory towards the net. Struck on the volley with his left foot from fully 25 metres, slightly to Spirit goalkeeper Lupce Acevski's left side, the ball whistled high into the net after Da Costa latched onto a half-clearance from a less threatening earlier Knights' parry.
Knights could have extended the lead shortly after the restart when Ivo De Jesus was through on Spirit keeper Lupce Acevski latching onto a through-ball from Alex Kiratzoglou, but Acevski bravely saved at De Jesus' feet.
Da Costa had a clear chance from an unchallenged header at the edge of the six-yard box just two minutes later after a perfectly-flighted cross from the right by Andy Vargas. Da Costa headed too sharply downwards and the chance disappeared.
But the deserved second goal eventually came in a sweet move started mid-pitch by the hard-running Joel Porter who played a ball wide to De Jesus on the right. De Jesus in turn crossed to where Marusic had run, allowing an easy conversion with the Spirit defence totally split.
Just minutes before Marusic's goal put Knights two up however, a Spirit substitution was made that was to have a significant effect: Dobbie had been introduced for the unimpressive Ryan Griffiths.
Dobbie was a tangible benefit of Spirit being owned by Scottish club Glasgow Rangers, and is on-loan from them. "He's here until the end of the season, with a view to us taking him next year," Hickman said. "He's played a youth level (in Scotland) and scored a lot of goals. He's also scored at under-20 level. He's got a reputation for scoring, and tonight he showed that."
Knights' influential captain coach Andrew Marth had to depart the field for treatment after he'd received a knock on the face in a heading duel. Whilst Marth was sidelined, Dobbie had ghosted into a position 30 metres out from goal and started a mazy run to the edge of the penalty-area riding three ineffective challenges on his journey. He easily pierced the Knights' back-line to set up a clear shot on goal past the hopelessly exposed Martin John.
"Someone should have taken the initiative and kicked the ball out - we were one person down, and we were all over the shop," said Marth after the game. "I pushed Ivo (De Jesus) back into midfield, but he didn't give us too much because (he's) not a great defender. We didn't re-adjust."
The Spirit goal had ended Marth's opportunity to sit on his lead. "If it (remained) two-nil, I would have changed (Sulemani) for (De Jesus). I thought that (Sulemani's) speed that would have caught a few players out."
The thought of holding a lead quickly vanished. Shortly after scoring his first, Dobbie then brought the game level with a pile-driver of a right-foot shot from fully 30 metres which mirrored Da Costa's earlier effort in coming out of the blue.
In between, Simon Bell's clearance off the line from a De Jesus shot summed up how this wasn't going to be Knights' night.
And the Knights' players will need to get used to being without Marth in next week's game away against Power - his twelfth minute booking was enough to take him over the disciplinary threshold and require him to sit it out.