Sun August 21, 2016 League 1 Ontario--Toronto Skillz FC vs Durham United FA (from League 1 Ontario website)

Huge Durham Comeback Secures Late Win Over Toronto Skillz
08/22/2016, 6:00pm EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

Durham United FA and Toronto Skillz put on a show at Birchmount Stadium, 
Scarborough on Sunday, in a back and forth nine-goal battle that saw the 
lead change three times and Durham emerge victors after a 6-3 result.

Kashiff De Jonge (2', 63') and Tristan Esprit (71', 76') landed braces, 
while Tim Flynn (90') and Shaq Agard (90' +1) added late singles 
to Durham's tally.  

Toronto Skillz' Mitchell Wong (36'), Wadohi Fadul (44') 
and Sameer Fathazada (45') had put the hosts up 3-1 by halftime 
but Durham is chasing the east division title and wouldn't 
be denied the points. 

"First things first, our whole season has been based around 
hard work," said Durham head coach, Sanford Carabin. 

"We started in January and we told them that without hard work 
closing players down and getting the ball - we are going 
to struggle. Every game that we have struggled in, where 
we have gone down, it is easy, we can point to one thing 
- we've just taken our foot off the pedal. The midfielders 
stop pressing, the forwards stop dropping back and tracking, 
so all I did at halftime was remind them that you can't win 
in this league, regardless of who you are playing, without 
hard work."

And work the Durham players did, scoring five goals 
in a second half display that overwhelmed a young 
Toronto Skillz side that thought they had done enough 
to secure the result. 

"I think it was just a wake-up call because sometimes when 
you get a goal in the first minute, everyone gets complacent, 
sit back and think they're going to coast," said Carabin. 

"But being in this game enough, I know that an early goal 
tends to rile up the other team. So I think at half-time 
everyone realized. We have some senior guys that turned 
around and said 'I'm not working hard enough' and we went 
in with a different mindset in the second half. Other than 
that, we made a few tactical changes when we got down 
to 3-2, bringing on some fresh legs to try and drive through 
the middle, and some senior guys who knew what they were doing. 
I think that changed the game near the end."

"I think again, it was poor game management here today," said 
Toronto Skillz technical director, Jake Doodnath.

"3-1 and a young team thinks it's over and just wanted 
to do their own thing on the field. We gave up the midfield 
and were not pressing as we were in the first half. We were 
giving them a chance to pick off the passes and against 
a team like that you pay the price for stepping away and 
not putting pressure as we did in the first sixty minutes."

Still, Doodnath was optimistic about certain individual 
performances and in particular about some of the academy's 
young players coming through. 

"I think what we can take is that we have some 16 and 17 year 
old players coming up that played amazing in the first half," 
he said. 

"We were missing our very influential midfielder, Ryan [Reid], 
but these guys stepped up and for three quarter of the game 
they did well, so we take positives that some of our young 
players that are coming through the system are doing well 
when given the opportunity." 

With the win, and a loss by Woodbridge Strikers the same 
day to east division leaders Vaughan Azzurri, Durham United 
moves into second place in the east division with 32 points 
from 15 matches. 

Vaughan Azzurri has 37 points from 16 matches, while 
Woodbridge Strikers drop into third place with 32 points 
from 16 matches. In fourth position is North Toronto Nitros, 
holding 30 points after 16 matches.  

back to 2016 League 1 Ontario Men's index

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