Curtin University Football Club and Olympic Kingsway shared the spoils in Friday night’s Football West State League season opener as they drew 1-1 at Curtin University. Wayne Culverwell opened the scoring for the visitors before Rory Binnie equalised in the second half to round out the scoring.

Curtin’s new central defensive pairing of Francesco Gerace and Albert Bucchino were rarely troubled as the home side did most of the attacking with Kingsway defending stoutly for long periods of the match. Curtin Stalwarts Eddie Tikoft and Jon Krawec combined well with youngster Rob Keegan in the middle of the park for the home side and the ever dangerous Dilip Thapa and Nathan Smith caused havoc out wide.

Kingsway took an early lead inside 5 minutes as a soft penalty was saved by Mackenzie Ferguson but the rebound was prodded home by Culverwell. From here Curtin grew into the game but finished wastefully with Krawec, Binnie and Tikoft all seeing efforts fly off target. The teams went into half time with the visitors clutching tightly to their early lead.

It seemed only a matter of time before Curtin would score and it was last year’s top scorer Binnie who did the damage as he put the ball home after some great work by Smith just 5 minutes into the second half. The home side went from strength to strength but could not find a way to break down a resilient Kingsway side. Jonstone Walker made a fine save to deny Curtin the lead and the following corner was cleared off the line just seconds before the full time whistle leaving the home side thinking of what could have been.

Team: Ferguson, Middleton, Gerace, Tikoft, Bucchino, Harvey, Krawec, Keegan (Coenen), Thapa (Bevan), Smith, Binnie.
Written by: David Cantoni