Spring Hills showed a lot of positive signs in the side’s FFA Cup round one win against Sunbury United on Saturday.
Facing a higher-ranked side, the Stallions recovered from a shaky start to seal a win in their first competition game of the season.
Stallions team manager Joe Febbraio said they went into the game focused on implementing their training.
“We went in with the view of it being another pre-season game,” he said. “We’ve changed a few things and we want to continue to build on the stuff we have been doing.
“The boys played to the structures and worked on the things we’ve been doing since December.”
Luck was against the Stallions early on and they could have quite easily led 1-0 after 10 minutes. The Stallions thought they had scored in the opening minutes, before the goal was disallowed due to an off-side call.
United was awarded a penalty which was saved, but was then given another shot when the referee said the goalkeeper moved off his line.
United took the lead when they converted the second time.
The Stallions levelled the scores later in the first half, before scoring the only goal of the second half to seal the win 2-1.
Febbraio said they were pleased with how the side responded in the second half.
“We got the winner and showed some real discipline and shape,” he said. “We were quite happy with how it panned out.
“These games are always difficult to judge, with a lot of teams at various stages in the pre-season.”
The Stallions will go into the state league 4 west season with a similar to team as last year when they finished second in west 5 and earned promotion.
David Maglovski will again coach the side.
Febbraio said the most pleasing thing was that most of the side had come through the ranks at the Stallions.
In other results, Melton Phoenix is also through to the second round of the FFA Cup after defeating Sandringham 2-1.
The Phoenix scored twice in the first half and were able to hold on to get the win.
The draw for the third round of the FFA Cup was due to be released on Monday afternoon, with the third round of matches to be held this weekend.
