Defender Scott Blackmore is pleased his team have their first win of the year on the board. Inglewood United moved to within touching distance of the Night Series Pool 1 summit by defeating newly promoted Rockingham City 3-2 on Saturday through goals by Jason Barrera, triallist Adriano Jelenovic and Chok Dau.
“It’s always a great feeling getting that first win, no matter who it’s against or how you get it,” Blackmore said. “After feeling we deserved more from the first two fixtures, it was nice to finally get one over the line. We controlled most of the game fairly well but, as usual, didn’t make it easy for ourselves and let them back in quite late.”
“We can feel the fitness coming on and some match sharpness coming back, and knew we were likely to have the edge in quality so as long as we matched them in terms of work rate and application we’d be up for a good result … we seem to be improving week on week so it was good to convert that momentum into a win.”
Saturday’s result brought to a close a week of upheaval in which attackers Kenny Keogh and Brian Woodall parted company with the club. “It’s never nice to lose experienced, senior players and those two brought quality, were big characters in the dressing room and also knew what it takes to get through a successful season,” Blackmore commented.
“One of the biggest challenges of the National Premier Leagues has always been to keep a quality squad together. You need the depth to compete across the whole season, but it’s difficult to keep every player happy and unfortunately some players are going to leave. It’s just the nature of the game at this level, players come and players go.”
“It was great to have played with Kenny and Brian and I’m sorry to see them go, but it now gives other players in the squad the opportunity to work hard, impress and stake a claim on a starting position. It’s business as usual for those that are wanting to be at Inglewood, so we dig in, pull together and we carry on with the job at hand to make the season a success.”
