Tara Murray
Hume City is through to the semi finals of the National Premier League after one of the more remarkable matches on Friday night.
For much of the elimination final with Heidelberg United there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Heidelberg took an early lead, but Hume levelled the scores in the 86th minute through a penalty.
That sent the game to extra time when the fun began.
Lightning stopped the match during extra time before Hume went a man down with about a minute left on the clock when captain Josh Bingham got a second yellow card.
With neither team finding a second goal, the match went to penalties.
Hume managed to get the job done, winning 5-4 on penalties.
Hume coach David Chick said he’d never seen a match like it.
“It feels like it’s had everything,” he said. “An amazing goal from them, a fantastic strike.
“We score a last minute penalty and lightning and then send off and then a penalty shoot out.
“An eventful night, a rollercoaster.”
Chick said every game played between the two sides had been drawn, so it had been really tight and tense.
He said it was an amazing goal that gave them the lead.
“It kind of felt like it had to be something like that, to probably to split the teams, a little bit of magic,” he said.
“But the boys really dug in and I think we were the better team for the second half especially early on.
“We managed to get one back.”
Chick said they felt like they probably should have gotten a penalty a little bit earlier in the piece.
He said they could sense they were likely to hit the scoreboard. Hume then pushed hard for a second.
“We felt something was coming, but were we going to run out of time?” Chick said. “We got the penalty and there was a bit of injury time left as well, we were still pushing.
“The message on the bench was that we could get one more and that was the message we were trying to get to the players, play to the last whistle.
“Don’t hold back. We felt like we had the momentum, but weren’t able quite to get the second, then extra.”
Chick said there were a lot of tired bodies on both teams in extra time. He said they felt that if they got to the penalty shoot out they would have a good chance of winning.
He said they tried not give too much away in the extra time period.
“It was about not making too many mistakes and if we could catch them on the counter, if it went to the penalty we were confident as we could be.”
Extra time was halted briefly for lightning before they came back on. Hume lost captain Josh Bingham to a red card with about a minute to go.
Chick said they didn’t have to play too long without him. The biggest thing was that Bingham was planned to be one of the penalty takers.
Michael Weier stood tall in the shoot out to get his side through to the next round.
Hume faces South Melbourne in the semi finals next weekend.
Chick said they were quite excited about the match.
“Lakeside is a really tough place to go,” he said. “It suits them very well.
“We’ve played them three times this year, lost by a single goal each time. I believe we can win the game.”
Before the semi final, Hume is in Australia Cup action on Tuesday night against Melbourne Srbija.
Chick said they would focus on recovery. A win would put Hume into the final eight of the competition.
Chick said they know it’s a really winnable game against a team that had had a good season and secured promotion.
