Accelerator, brake, Jamie England.
The Goulburn Valley Suns skipper was clutch to rescue a point for his side on Saturday, slamming home an indirect free kick in the 94th minute to seal a 2-2 draw against Beaumaris.
It was the second time in five days he’d rippled the net following his opening goal in the Suns’ famed 2-0 Australia Cup upset win over Hume City, and Saturday’s was arguably just as important.
The draw keeps the Suns rooted inside the top four and a point off second spot, with promotion paramount on coach Craig Carley’s agenda.
“Overall it was probably a bit of a disappointing performance on the back end of a quite a heavy workload with the game last Saturday and the cup game on Tuesday,” Carley said.
“In the first half we didn’t take our chances, the first 15 we were off the pace a little bit, but then took control.
“We should have had a couple of goals and in the second half we didn’t come out of the traps and credit to Beaumaris, they certainly had the upper hand in the game and we were probably lucky to get a point in the end.
“Again it was good resilience from the boys to get that point, but we have to be a lot more accountable in games and winning games against teams like Beaumaris if we’re going to really push for those promotion spots this season.”
Playing on a choppy Beaumaris Reserve, the Suns were hit with a sucker punch only three minutes into the fixture as Yosuke Sazuka’s deep free kick skipped through the box untouched and in.
England would turn provider for the equaliser a quarter of an hour later as he slipped Brandon Giaccherini through with a dime pass.
The electric young winger, flourishing with bags of confidence at the moment, sprinted through on goal and slid a low shot through the goalkeeper’s legs for his sixth of the season.
Giaccherini went close in the later stages of the first half, unable to secure his brace after blazing the ball over the bar following a ping-pong sequence inside Beaumaris’ box.
But again, the host would edge ahead in the 68th minute.
A corner not dealt with by the Suns was whipped back in from out wide and Ryan Brown was first to meet it, thundering the ball off the bar and in for a 2-1 ascendancy.
Bad turned to worse for the Suns as Adam Gatcum saw red after making a last man challenge mere seconds after the restart, and it took all of the side’s guts and guile to stave off the siege on goal by Beaumaris.
With the game petering out and a loss looking inbound, a brain fade of epic proportions by the home keeper allowed the Suns a path back into the game ― and they obliged without even a thanks.
Beaumaris’ shot stopper attempted to run the clock down in injury time, but held onto the ball for more than the allotted six seconds and was pulled up for a free kick inside the box.
Giaccherini tapped the ball to England who tucked away his dinner, drawing sighs of relief from Carley and co on the bench.
“Every game is huge … and to be perfectly honest we’re sitting in a pretty good position, we just need to capitalise a little bit more when other teams do drop like this weekend,” Carley said.
“It’s disappointing that we haven’t done that again, but the positive is we’re in the mix and hopefully we’re there come the end of the season as well.”
In the earlier game, Suns’ under-21s continued their champagne campaign with a clinic to hammer Beaumaris 6-1.
Jude Crichton netted a double to keep his side in second, eight points off leader Melbourne Victory.