Hanwood defeat Lake Albert to stay unbeaten in Pascoe Cup

The travelling side proved their strength in the competition in a tense game featuring three red cards.

Hanwood coach Anthony Agresta said conditions were tough and contributed to the amount of cards given, saying he didn't feel the game was heated in a negative way.

"I wouldn't say it was heated, but it was two top of the table teams going at it," Agresta said.

"There were quite a few cards but I think most of the stuff was a bit clumsy, or the ground being a bit slippery, and being a night game the ground was getting dewy and a lot of the tackles people were a tad late and with the conditions they seemed worse.

"The first send off I think was a fair send off, but the other two were just two yellows."

Naser Smoqy, Adil Sulaiman, and Jacom Vitucci were all given marching orders during the game, while another six players were issued single yellows.

The visitors came out strong early with Christopher Zappala finding the back of the net just three minutes into the game.

William Piva backed up his efforts with a goal in the 36th minute to ultimately end the scoring for the game.

Pleased with how every player did their job across the field, Agresta said the return of captain Daniel Andreazza to the side gave them an additional boost.

"Originally the plan was to bring him back through reserve grade, but with the way things were we just needed to get him in there," he said.

"For us, this year more than ever, we've had a fair big turnover of players and a lot of experience dropped out of the team and having guys like him, Danny (Johnson), and Nick Kennedy are really important."

Agresta said the side prides themselves on keeping a clean sheet and were pleased to do so once again.

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"Defensively I thought we were pretty good, even at half time we spoke, being 2-0 up, you know when teams go down to 10, they tend to lift," he said.

"They did, Lake Albert did have a lot of ball in the second half but they didn't really trouble us.

"They didn't really have any clear shots on goal so we held our structure pretty well and defended pretty well across the whole game."

Entering the game with expectations of a tough match, Agresta said the side knew they were in for a tough game especially when low on numbers.

"With limited numbers, to come up with three wins across the three grades was a big effort from all the boys, we were very stoked at the end of the day," he said.

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