City salvage a draw

Rockingham City Football Club rounded out their last home game of the season with an entertaining but ultimately frustrating 2-2 draw against UWA Nedlands Football Club on Saturday.

In their last game for the season at Lark Hill, Rockingham started well and had several chances to score, with Hilario Nunes’ spurning one of the home side’s best chances with a missed header.

While UWA remained a threat on the counter with some fast and powerful players, it was Rockingham who opened the scoring when Oriol Fernandez was brought down in the box.

Ryan Kennedy tucked away the resulting penalty to give Rockingham a 1-0 lead at half-time.

However, the game was soon turned on its head moments after the restart when Max Snelson conceded a foul and gave UWA a penalty barely 60 seconds after the break.

UWA equalised and to make matters worse Snelson was forced off injured as a result of the challenge. The visitors sensed the tide was turning and soon found themselves 2-1 up after they broke down the right-hand side and cut the ball back to score from close range. Rockingham coach Rob Crerar made some around the hour mark and the home side soon got back into the game after Kennedy put the ball through to Christian Hogge who smashed home a cracking equaliser from 20m out. Chasing the win, Rockingham had chances to seize the points with Blake Sokolowski, David Clark and Nunes all going close but it wasn’t to be.

“We were pushing but I think a draw was a fair result,” Crerar said. “They were fast on the counter, really quick, and a couple of times when we were pushing for the goal they did bounce out quickly.”

Rockingham will finish their season with a tough away clash to league champions Western Knights on Saturday at Nash Field.

They’ll get the trophy after the game so they are going to have a big crowd there and it’s their last home game as well so they’ll be desperate to sign off in style,” Crerar said.

“Our club captain Sean Brady is retiring so we want to make sure that we do the right thing by him and go out and get the win with a good performance to match.”