AIS 0 Western Suburbs 1

Read Neil Zimmerman's match report below. And you can hear Neil Zimmerman's report on Nearpost radio tomorrow

The AIS suffered their second loss in as many weeks as Western Suburbs picked up a 1-0 victory thanks to a 54th minute strike from Tomi Razov at Ralph Reserve on Sunday afternoon.

The win was only their second for the season for Western Suburbs and their first under newly appointed coach, Ken Murphy.

Murphy, who replaced Kon Pappas late in the week, would have been pleased with the early endeavour shown by his charges and they obviously looked to impress their new boss.

Western Suburbs had the most of the early play but failed to make any impression on the scoresheet. Both Suburbs' captain Terry Antoniadis and Vasili Kalogeracos spurned chances early to give the home side the lead.

Almost at every opportunity the home side were looking to press the AIS defence and force them out of the comfort zone of passing the ball out of the back half.

The visitors' first real opportunity to score didn't arrive until around the twenty minute mark as a Jason Hoffman was easily dealt with by the Western Suburbs' 'keeper. Only moments later, Antoniadis had another opportunity to put the team in front with the AIS' 'keeper caught out of position.

The first half drew to a close without either team troubling the scoresheet and only creating a few half chances.

Nine minutes into the second half, after a period of dominance and good build-up play, the home side were rewarded with a goal from Tomi Razov. Razov beat Mark Birghitti in the AIS goal with a well taken shot after being set up by Kalogeracos.

The competition's leading goal scorer, Jason Naidovski almost had a chance to the level the scores only minutes later, but his header from a Matthew Theodore cross sailed well over the bar without troubling Stejpan Gal in the Suburbs goal.

Early in the play there had been some brilliant lead up play by AIS winger, Kofi Danning as his burst of speed left the defenders in his wake.

After going a goal down the AIS were now looking to apply the pressure on a Western Suburbs team that had gone into its shell.

AIS Coach, Ray Junna, saw this as a perfect opportunity to bring on Sam Munro for Richard Greer. Only moments after being on the field of play, Munro picked up his team's only yellow card for the day after a heavy challenge on goal scorer, Razov.

With only fifteen minutes to go in the match, Suburbs' keeper Gal kept his team in the game with two excellent saves from the boot of Alexander Sunasky in rapid succession.

It would be a one of the moments, which the AIS coach noted after the game where the AIS failed to take their chances.

In the dying moments of the match, Danning, who was proving to extremely elusive, had an opportunity to level the scores for the visitors but his shot was straight at the 'keeper after he was cleverly put through by Naidovski.

After the game, Western Suburbs coach, Ken Murphy was reluctant to put the win down to "new coach" syndrome but was pleased with the overall effort of his new charges.

"They did everything that I asked of them and maybe were unlucky not to win 2-0, which would have been a fair result", he noted, although qualifying his statement by stating that they rode their luck late in the game.

Both AIS coach, Ray Junna and his captain, Luke Devere both stated after the game that on the day, the team failed to take the chances that were presented to them and this ultimately cost them any chance of taking any points away from Ralph Reserve.