Melbourne Heart FC and Adelaide United have played out a drama-filled 1-1 draw in their National Youth League encounter at John Cain Memorial Park on Sunday afternoon.
Melbourne Heart FC and Adelaide United have played out a drama-filled 1-1 draw in their National Youth League encounter at John Cain Memorial Park on Sunday afternoon.
Goal-scoring machine Zac Walker gave the home side the lead on 24 minutes with Teeboy Kamara equalising for the Reds early in the second-half.
Melbourne Heart thought they had got off a perfect start on four minutes when Fred tapped home from close range, but the assistant referee flagged for offside.
Awer Mabil almost had Adelaide in-front soon after when he was fed the ball out right but his first time strike smashed off the underside of the crossbar and was eventually cleared by the Heart defence.
Adelaide soon found themselves down to 10-men when Jonathon Mavromatis was sent-off for a studs up challenge on Brodie Patterson.
Billy Liolios forced Adelaide goalkeeper Daniel Vaughan into action on 22 minutes but Heart didn't have to wait long to finally break the dead-lock.
A short free-kick was played to captain Dusan Bosnjak who's deflected shot fell right into the path of Zac Walker on the edge of the area who fired his strike low past Vaughan to give Heart the lead.
Fred looked lively in the opening period of the game but was given an early shower with John Aloisi replacing him with Stipo Andrijasevic on the half-hour mark.
Liam Wooding became the second Adelaide player to hit the wood-work on 37 minutes with his strike coming off the right-hand post to the relief of Melbourne Heart goalkeeper Thomas Dunn.
Heart went into the break with the advantage but it didn't take long for Adelaide to equalise upon the start of the second-half.
Adelaide came out looking dangerous and were rewarded for their approach when Mabil set up Teeboy for a tap-in from close range.
He almost put 10-men Adelaide in-front just a minute later but his shot was expertly saved by Dunn.
Aloisi brought on Kliment Taseski on 55 minutes for his first appearance since sustaining a serious injury several months ago.
Teeboy continued to threaten and spurned two great chances, one he hit right at Dunn and the other he blasted over the crossbar.
Just as Heart seemed to be finding a rhythm in the second-half it was abruptly halted as Andrijasevic became the second player to be shown a red card after a reckless challenge bringing it to 10 v 10.
Both sides seemed to cancel each other out in the late stages of the game and neither could break through with the game ending in a stalemate. Melbourne Heart FC 1 (Z.Walker 24') Adelaide United 1 (Kamara 50'). Venue: John Cain Memorial Park