Tara Murray
Hume City coach David Chick couldn’t be prouder of his playing group despite being knocked out of the National Premier League finals on Friday night.
It was a big week for Hume City as it kept its Australia Cup campaign alive, before being knocked out of the semi finals of the NPL three days later.
Coach David Chick said it was a massive effort from the group to continue backing up, with three knock out finals in the space of eight days.
“The turnaround times are really short for part-time players,” he said. “Three days is fine if you’re a professional football player, but you have to get on the tools at 6am and then come to training.
“It’s quite difficult for the guys. They’ve been brilliant, everything we’ve asked them to do, they’ve had great performances.
“We’ve invested so much emotion and physically, I’m so proud.”
After winning in the elimination finals of the NPL competition in penalties last Friday, Hume was set to be tested.
It started with a round of 16 Australia Cup match against Melbourne Srbija.
A second half goal was enough to give Hume a 1-0 win.
Chick said it was a tough night in windy conditions.
“They were really difficult to play football in,” he said. “It was really windy going down the pitch, one end you were sort of pinned in.
“The second half they were pinned in. The guys battled really hard to keep a clean sheet in the first half and managed to get a set piece.
“A near perfect ball in ended up in the net.”
Hume didn’t have much rest as they faced South Melbourne in a knockout semi final in the NPL on Friday.
Having finished on top South Melbourne picked the time slot and naturally gave Hume as least amount of time as possible to rest.
Chick said they were always going to be up against it. Scores were locked at 0-0 at the end of regular time.
South Melbourne scored in the first period of extra time and that was enough for a 1-0 win.
“We definitely tired towards the end,” Chick said. “Despite them losing a player, it was a strange goal,
“I think Mikey [Weier] slipped but it was a good finish. That is what separated the teams.
“We had our chances, we had more chances, but the ball has to go in the back of the net to win football matches.”
Chick said while there was a bit of tiredness but South Melbourne was better in the key moments and that was the difference.
“A bit of fatigue would not have helped,” he said. “They’ve done that against us when we haven’t been tired and we know that.”
Having been knocked out of the Dockerty Cup and the NPL finals by South Melbourne, Hume faces South Melbourne in the quarter finals of the Australia Cup.
Chick said they will be hoping it’s third time lucky in finals against the NPL ladder leaders.
“It’s the fifth time we’ve played them,” he said. “Nice thing for us, you generally have to wait quite a while to play them again.
“We don’t, it will be at our ground which is nice. They’ll play the final between that.”
“Hopefully we can get a result.”
