NPL rookies New Lambton moving on with new confidence

The Golden Eagles downed Adamstown 2-1 on Saturday despite losing Lattimore to a straight red card for a lunging challenge in the 20^th minute. Lattimore, who scored the previous week in New Lambton's 1-1 draw with Jaffas, had put them ahead 1-0 10 minutes earlier at Adamstown Oval. Rosebud levelled early in the second half but the visitors got the match-winner with a late penalty from Kai Bradley.

New Lambton coach Tom Davies believed Lattimore was unlucky to get the red card, which received the minimum one-week ban.

The club weighed up taking the call to the Obvious Error Panel, which rescinded a red card to Jaffas' Sam Webb this year, but no challenge was issued.

"It was probably one of those ones I think was probably a yellow card, but it's hard to see on that BarTV angle," Davies said.

"I think it was one of those ones that was 50-50 and could go either way. But that's football, and the interpretation of the rules sometimes, but we probably got a few our way in that first game against Charlestown and we just didn't exploit them."

The Golden Eagles debuted in the NPL with a 1-0 loss to an eight-man Charlestown side before falling 9-1 to Maitland. But they have bounced back the past two weeks and next face in-form Valentine on Saturday.

"It's really positive to get that first win," Davies said.

"Now look to next week. Obviously Valo had a really good win [3-1 over Maitland], so they'll obviously be full of confidence.

"I think apart from a poor performance against Maitland, we are where we expected to be. Against Jaffas and probably Charlestown, we should have got something more out of those games, so it's good to see that ability to get the three points.

"It's a good start and each game is another challenge. Every team throws something different at you."

He said the aim this year for New Lambton was "consistency and players getting belief and confidence". NPL recruits Bradley and Sam Maxwell were among their best on Saturday but Davies was also pleased with the response of his players from last season.

"I think we've got a few individuals that have probably surprised a few teams early on, which is really good," he said. "A fair bit of pace up front always helps.

"The guys stepping up a division have done really well so far. The Maitland game, just push that aside. We were probably going to cop that once or twice, just with the pressures of NPL football against a quality team.

"But we spoke a lot about that game. There were a lot of learnings and lessons."

He was proud of the effort on Saturday after the early setback.

"Seventy minutes was obviously a big challenge," he said of playing a man down.

"We started the game pretty well. I thought we created the better chances then got the early goal.

"Even with 10 men we created a few chances. Riley Taylor and Dylan Bozinovski had one on ones and with what we created we probably could have scored a couple more to ease that load the last 10 minutes, but we kept fighting.

"I was disappointed we conceded early in the second half, but with 10 men we got a bit stretched. They crossed the ball I think three times.

"But overall I was really happy with the performance. We obviously had to adjust slightly when down to 10 but still kept attacking and getting the ball back.

"We knew we had to be patient and then hit them on the counter as quick as we could.

"I said to the boys at halftime it was one of those days where they had to play for two players in terms of work rate and running to make sure we get the coverage and that we're closing the spaces down.

"Kai was fantastic. The amount of work he and Riley put in defensively, then to counter - they were beating three and four players sometimes to bring the ball forward for us, which was really positive.

"The backline stood up with Sam Maxwell and Tom Siderovski keeping everyone pretty organised, and Alex Bozinovski in goals made two really good saves in the last 10 minutes."