There was a real air of anticipation on arrival at Hensley on Wednesday evening for one of, if not THE, most important game in our club’s history. The new Dunbar Rovers banners were playing proudly from the back of the grandstand and the hanging banner made sure everyone knew they were at a Dunbar Rovers home ground. The task would be huge tonight against NPL1 powerhouse Bonnyrigg White Eagles in Round 5 of the Westfield FFA Cup. A little publicised fact was that Dunbar Rovers were trying to maintain a proud record at the ground – never having been beaten there since we first started playing there in 2003. We had played in ESFA Grand Finals, ESFA Cup Finals, State League, Waratah Cup, NPL Men’s 3 and FFA Cup games at the venue and had never lost – until now.

Dunbar needed everything to go right for us on the night and the reality is that nothing did. After a great move on the right hand side, the ball was played into the box to an unmarked Andrew Green whose touch put the ball agonisingly wide of the Bonnyrigg goal, resulting in loud groans from the huge crowd in attendance.

In games like these you need your key players to play well. Unfortunately for us one of them, Andrew Doddy was forced off after about 18 minutes with a rolled ankle, replaced by right sided player Alex Nicolosi, requiring a forced reshuffle of the team.

Soon afterwards, a mistake in defence from the visitors allowed Dunbar captain Robbie Deasy to try an audacious lob from the half-way line over the hapless White Eagles keeper who found himself well outside of his area. In a moment where time almost stopped and the massive Dunbar crowd held its collective breath, the ball landed on top of the net and went out for a goal kick. Cue massive groans from the Hensley grandstand.

Then disaster struck. After one of Bonnyrigg’s dangerous raids down our left hand side, Kenny Chun scored from close range. It was almost hard to believe that it was a goal because the crowd was so silent. But worse was to come. Before Dunbar had the opportunity to update the club Facebook page, Chun was at it again, with an almost identical goal. Ah well, one update would had to do – Dunbar Rovers o-2 Bonnyrigg Kenny Chun (2). Bonnyrigg really turned it one during this period and created some more chances before half-time but Dunbar managed to hold out and went to the dressing room with a 2 goal deficit.

Was there any chance for our boys? The talk in the grandstand at half-time was that we needed an early goal and anything could happen. Dunbar rallied well early in the second half and dominated possession, but in truth, never really created any clearcut chances.

Midway through the half Bonnyrigg put the tie to bed with their third goal from a neat Nikola Zonjic header and the planning for a home Round 6 tie began in earnest.

To their credit our boys never gave up and battled hard until the end. Often teams of this standard tend to knock in quite a few goals in the last 10 or 15 minutes but this did not happen. Dunbar were resilient and our defence held firm, including Stephen Deasy who had a fine game in goal.

It ended Dunbar Rovers 0-3 Bonnyrigg White Eagles. Congratulations to Brian Brown, Cliffy Pointer and their Bonnyrigg White Eagles and good luck in the next round against our neighbours Hakoah FC.

Westfield FFA Cup Round 5
Dunbar Rovers FC 0-3 Bonnyrigg White Eagles
Hensley Athletic Field
Wednesday April 20th 2016. 7:30pm kickoff
Attendance: 400

STARTING LINEUP:
S.Deasy – Euripidou, Smith, Swartz, Ezekiel – Miller, Doddy, Burke – R.Deasy (Captain), Mrva, Green
Subs: Nicolosi for Doddy, Hems for Miller, Adamo for Mrva.