Valour FC humbled again by Hamilton’s Forge

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This article was published 17/08/2019 (2423 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Valour FC hasn’t had much luck this year when put up against Hamilton’s Forge FC.

In the teams’ first three meetings, Forge had no trouble stealing the show.

Turns out, the fourth time wasn’t that much different.

Valour suffered a disappointing loss at Investors Group Field on Saturday night, losing 3-1 against Forge. It’s the sixth time this year Valour has lost by a two-goal deficit.

Valour head coach Rob Gale admitted that Forge owned the field for the first 10 minutes of Saturday’s game, while Valour struggled to keep the pace.

“(Forge) was throwing bodies in, blocking shots, legs, bodies everywhere. That was the difference on the day,” Gale said.

Just as Winnipeg was getting some wind in their sails, Forge’s Anthony Novak scored his first goal of the night.

Novak appeared to be offside when he put Forge on the board, but no flag was raised on the play. Spectators and Valour players both seemed baffled by the missed call, but since there’s no video review in the CPL, there wasn’t much Gale could do.

“I believe it was (offside), and it changes the game. When you go a goal down against a team like Forge who can sit in and use the ball and then counter attack with the attacking qualities again, it completely changes the complexion of the game,” said Gale.

It didn’t take long for Forge to strike again. In the second half, Novak made it look easy, slipping his way through a bundle of Valour defenders and toe-poking the ball over the line for his second goal.

Valour’s goal came not long after. Midfielder Dylan Carreiro got pulled down by Forge’s Jonathan Grant. The play was enough for refs to issue a yellow card to Grant and a penalty kick to Valour, which Michael Petrasso capitalized on.

Just as things seemed to be looking up, Forge brought the ball back downfield to score less than a minute later.

“Going two goals down that late in the game it’s hard to get back in and obviously the confidence dropped after that,” said Petrasso.

“I think it’s probably the worst thing that can happen at that certain time, because everybody gets a big boost and then within a minute they score. Your head just kind of falls to the ground, after that you need a quick one back to gain it back and we couldn’t take our chances and we fell short this game. They were a good side, they played well and at the end of the day it’s a fair game, we have to focus on the next one.”

Unfortunately for Valour, their next game is coming a lot sooner than they’d hoped. Scheduling gods have not been kind – their next match begins 7 p.m. on Monday at Investors Group Field.

“I’m no physiologist or sports scientist, but you tell me – when you run 10 to 12 kilometres, and your players are averaging that, and what time is it right now, 7 p.m. on Saturday evening? Within 48 hours we’re back on the pitch, but it is what it is. We’ve been dealt that hand, as were Calgary and Edmonton. So we got to make sure we don’t use it as an excuse,” said Gale.

devon.shewchuk@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @devonshewchuk