Two straight defeats had started to make the run-in look awkward, and the quickest way out of a stretch like that is a night at The Web where nothing goes wrong.
Eltham beat Manningham United Blues 5-0 on Friday, and the shape of it matters as much as the margin. Josh Dennett scored in the 12th minute and it stayed at 1-0 until the interval, so for forty-five minutes this was a tight game against a side sitting a place above us in the table. The second half turned it into something else. Yianni Panakos scored four minutes after the restart, Marcus Day made it three on 64 and Billy Romas added the fourth a minute later, and Marco Rojas, on as a substitute in the 67th minute, finished the scoring in the 87th. Four second-half goals from four different scorers, five on the night from five, and a clean sheet at the other end.
The table moved accordingly. The Redbacks went into the round eighth on 29 points from 21 games with a goal difference of plus nine, and came out of it sixth on 32 from 22, with the goal difference up to plus fourteen. Those five goals did nearly as much work as the three points, because in a division this compressed the goal difference is what separates sides who finish level. Manningham went the other way, dropping from seventh to eighth, their own goal difference sliding from minus five to minus ten.
That position was worth reading carefully rather than celebrating too hard, and so it proved. Eltham had played 22 matches while several of the sides around us had played 21, and FC Melbourne Srbija have since drawn their outstanding fixture with Brunswick Juventus to move to 33 points and back above us. Sixth has become seventh without the Redbacks kicking a ball. What Friday bought is a better starting point for the run home, not a finished argument.
The run of form going into the round read won, won, drawn, lost, lost, and it was the last two that needed answering. Ending that at home, against the team directly above us, is the response the group needed to produce. It is also worth remembering where this season sits in the club’s story. The Redbacks won promotion from VPL2 in 2025 and this is a first campaign at this level, so putting five past an established VPL1 side is a genuine marker rather than a routine Friday.
Dennett’s opener is worth a mention beyond the scoresheet. He scored from long range away at Bulleen Lions back in Round 3, and he keeps arriving in the fixtures the club most needs him in. At the other end there was one booking all night, Finn Diamond in the 40th minute, which in a five-goal game says something about how comfortably it was managed. Benjamin Wallace, who has come up through the club’s juniors into the senior squad this year, was among the changes late on.
Five goals, a clean sheet and a losing run ended is about as much as one Friday night can deliver, and it arrives at the point in the season where those things count for the most.
Up the ‘Backs.