HAWKESBURY City Football Club fell agonisingly short of a seventh Football Federation Cup victory on Wednesday night, losing 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out.
The club fought back from 2-0 down at half-time against Western NSW Mariners, to finish the game 3-3 at the end of extra time, in front of a crowd in the hundreds.
Coach Dean Bertenshaw said he felt his team was very unlucky not to take the win.
Bertenshaw said the team completely turned the match around in the second half, but were unable to capitalise on their chances - something he talked about doing before the game.
‘‘I feel pretty ordinary because the boys put a fair bit into the game,’’ he said.
‘‘I would say the Mariners were definitely hanging on in extra time and I don't think that is being disrespectful.
‘‘In extra time we were attacking time and time again but they got a run away goal and tied it up.’’
Bertenshaw said Hawkesbury City pushed very hard in the second half to try to snatch a win, after Ben Gough and Kyle Simone both scored goals.
‘‘Kyle scored with about 20 minutes to go, when he scored we felt we could get another goal because we were flying,’’ he said.
‘‘We probably burnt a lot of petrol gunning for the last goal.’’
With the match tied at 2-2 at the end of regulation, the match went into extra time, where again, Hawkesbury City were all over the Mariners.
Ben Gough scored again in extra time to give his team the lead at 3-2.
However, the Mariners somehow came away with the ball from a Hawkesbury City corner attempt and scored a run-away goal to level things up again.
From there, the game went into a penalty shoot-out, which the Mariners won, 4-3.
Bertenshaw said the Mariners goal-keeper put in a stellar effort, not only in the shoot-out but for the entire game.
Despite the agonising loss, Bertenshaw said he was proud of his team’s efforts, especially considering their interrupted training schedule this season.
‘‘We wanted to go as far as the club could go and round six was it - so pretty pleased was it,’’ he said.
‘‘Our first goal was to go the furthest any Hawkesbury team has gone before and we did that but we felt we could have got one more win.’’
