Western NSW Mariners' match-winner Adam Scimone says his side will head into Saturday's home game against bogey side Camden with a new-found confidence following a rare win last week.
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Western chalked up just their second victory of the 2019 National Premier League 3 season via a Scimone strike in the 93rd minute of their road clash with Sydney University, the visiting Mariners showing plenty of resilience to put a controversial equaliser behind them and come away with a 4-3 win.
Western shot out to a 3-2 lead following goals to Jaiden Culbert, Jeremy Judge and Scimone's first before the hosts looked to have tied the game up with Michael Loupis' third from well outside the box.
In somewhat controversial circumstances, the assistant referee raised his flag in the lead-up to the goal after ruling a Sydney Uni attacking player off-side.
That threat didn't come into play though and, despite the Mariners' defence coming to a stand-still as a result of the flag, the referee let play continue and Loupis' goal from long range was ruled official, locking the scores up at 3-all.
But Scimone's winner, deep into death time, sealed a well-earned Mariners' triumph.
"It was pandemonium after that," Scimone said looking back at the match-winner.
"Bellsy (Dillon Bell) put up a peach of a cross and I chested it and netted it in.
"I was just there at the right time. The boys played out of their skin and adapted to the new formation well."
The whole point of changing is to be better defensively and offer more support to the strikers so we'll continue that again this week.
- Adam Scimone on his side's new formation.
He said the second-half was "pretty full on" with six goals scored in the round 10 thriller but a new formation, the Mariners played 4-1-3-2 set last week, helped Western steady the ship.
"Before we'd concede goals and heads go down .. but we kept pushing and didn't stop," Scimone enthused.
The replacement striker says the new formation the side is trialing is in a bid to negate the flood of goals the Mariners have conceded to start the season.
Western has conceded a league-worst 39 goals in the 2019 NPL3 premiership but last week's win bodes well for a Mariners side on the cusp of a mini-revival, Scimone says.
"Basically, it's been a tough start so far for us," Scimone admitted.
"But (coach) Mark (Rooke) still believes we're definitely good enough to win each week, it's just a bit inconsistent still.
"So for us, we can't go from last week (winning 4-3) and not back it up this week. Camden's a bit of a bogey side, nothing special, but they seem to get results.
"We'll have to concentrate on ourselves though. The whole point of changing is to be better defensively and offer more support to the strikers so we'll continue that again this week."