Week 1 of Finals
Post date: Aug 7, 2019 4:12:27 AM
It has been a great season for the club in the competitive competitions with 13 of 18 competitive teams advancing to the semi finals.
The first week of the finals was played last weekend for two teams in 8-team competitions.
It kicked off last Saturday at 12.45pm at Strathfield Park between our Over35 Division 1 team and Earlwood Wanderers. The Titans Over35s were champions last season but this year started off very poorly and were at one stage 2nd last. They started to turn their season around by stringing some wins together and despite indifferent results on the whole due to injuries and absentees, managed to squeeze into the top 4.
They had played Earlwood two weeks ago and narrowly lost so this was time for redemption. They fell behind early in the game but managed to level the score. Earlwood again hit the lead but then had a man sent off. The Titans controlled play and again equalised before Earlwood again took the lead against the run of play. Cooks River equalised yet again before half time. In the second half, the dominance of the Titans shone through and put on another 3 goals to run out convincing 6-3 winners. They go on to play Concord in the preliminary final for a place in the Grand Final the week after.
The other match played last weekend was in the Under13 Division 1 competition. The Cooks River Under13s joined our club this year and coach Sasha Jovanovic selected players he had previously worked with at other clubs to establish a formidable team. After a tough pre-season it was evident that this team would be too good for Division 2 so applied for Division 1. For most of the first half of the season the team was battling it out for first place much to the surprise of all involved considering they were up against teams from larger clubs with groups of players who had been together for longer. The second half of the season proved to be a bit tougher and the Titans ended up in 4th spot.
They had a knock out semi final against Marrickville at 11.15am at Centenary Park in Burwood. After falling behind in the 12th minute. The game was hard fought with only a few chances but Cooks River managed to grab a goal just before half time through Adriano Lemme. The stalemate was short-lived in the second half as Marrickvilel scored after some good build up play to round the keeper and take a 2-1 lead. Marrickville then hit the cross bar followed by a massive save by goalkeeper Antonio Alaveras to keep the Titans in the game. The Sky Blues could not find a way through and the score ended up 2-1 in favour of Marrickville which sees our boys eliminated. The coach, manager and parents should be very proud of this group of players and we are sure they will go even better next season after having a taste of Division 1.