Equal second place holder Central Coast received a sudden shock when bottom placed Hills Brumbies scored after 50 seconds and held on for a well deserved draw.

The ball went out of play for a Hills thrown in thirty seconds after the kick off. The throw was taken and an innocuous ball went into the penalty are straight to a Central Coast defender, but he completely miskicked the ball and it went straight to an unmarked Russell Farrell who had a simple job to kick the ball into an empty net. 1-0!!

Central Coast were on the back foot before the game was a minute old and commenced to put the Hills defence under immense pressure. Captain Jamie Lobb made one of his usual runs down the left hand side and put the ball into the Hills penalty area. Goalkeeper Chris Rizzo came out to collect the ball but completely mistimed his attempt and the ball landed at the feet of Mitchell Harper who shot for what appeared to be a certain goal, but Greg Giovenali came from nowhere to kick the ball off the line to save the day.

Hills appeared to be completely out of the match but made a sudden break and it was their turn to look like scoring when Brendan Mitrovich received the ball from Farrell and with only goalkeeper Jay Pilson to beat kicked well wide.

Coast continued the pressure and it was inevitable that they should score, and in the 28th minute Paul McGinley went down the right and crossed into the Hills area where Grant Maundrell added to his already impressive goal tally with the equaliser.

Hills were not to be outdone however and they commenced to reverse the pressure they had been under and six minutes later an attack down the left flank saw the ball go into the Coast penalty area where it was met by Dragan Savic with an impressive header to again give Hills the lead.

The game flowed up and down the pitch for the remainder of the first half but the whistle blew for the break with no addition to the score.

Coast resumed at a fast rate and twice within two minutes had shots go very close but just wide. The game continued to flow back and forth with first Lobb for the Coast going close and forcing Rizzo to make a good save, and then Farrell fired a shot that grazed the top of the Coast crossbar.

Lobb then commenced a move down the left, passed to Matt Mitchell who ran through the Hills defence to slide a perfect placed shot under Rizzo to again tie the match.

The last twenty minutes was played at a frantic place and both teams gave everything, but due to the pressure on trying to get the winning goal, the passing started to deteriorate and goal scoring chances diminished.

Both goalkeepers were forced to make good saves and at the final whistle anything but a draw would have been quite unfair.

Both coaches agreed with this with Coast’s Peter Preston saying, ”It was a tight game and ended in a fair result. They played well and if they can keep that form up should soon start to move up the ladder”.

Hills’ Mark Abi-Arrage agreed but added, “We need to win more matches, to draws!”

Under 20: Central Coast FC 4 - Hills Brumbies FC 1