United win big

Under 14s: Gippsland United def. Mornington 5-2

11 weeks of grading would be finalised under beautiful Autumn conditions at Latrobe City Stadium for the team's final outing of the 2024 grading period.

The pre-game talk was all about showing heart, desire and a will to win – to prove as a team and individual players that Gippsland can compete for a full 60 minutes.

The game kicked off and United were the quickest to settle into rhythm and in the fifth minute it would be Clay McCann-Diston who would see himself on the end of a delightful through ball from Addison Greig to open the home team's account for the day.

In the 12th minute it would be Greig again who would take on the Mornington defense and slot one away past the keeper to add to his tally for the grading game period.

Six minutes later Greig would receive a ball played out of United's defense, resulting in him making a decisive run down the left flank before cutting in and beating the keeper to score his second for the day.

Not to be outdone, McCann-Diston would add to his tally a minute later after also taking on the keeper, the resulting goal would see United go 4-0 up.

The United midfield of Yanez, Diwa, Semmens and Abbisogni were working hard and continued to try and feed the ball to United's two attacking threats.

With 10 minutes left in the half Mornington would capitalise on a defensive error and intercept a poorly weighted back pass to score their first goal for the match.

Prior to this the defense of Taolin McNeil, Lucas Robson, Harrison Sharp and Jarvis McDonald had held firm and controlled their area to solid effect.

With three minutes left in the half one of Mornington's midfielders got onto a ball and had a look up, and seeing the United keeper off his line he would put a cracking strike over the home keeper's head from about 30 meters out to reduce the lead to two goals and give the away team a sniff of a comeback.

Thankfully the halftime whistle blew to ensure that United could head into the break 4-2 up.

Play resumed in the second half after a talk around not giving up and fighting to the final whistle.

The match would turn into a scrappy affair for the first 20-odd minutes of the second half, with errant tackles and scrappy play from both teams.

Composure was required and United tried to slow the game down and reassert their dominance, but a denied penalty call would see the team get frustrated with the game and run of play.

With one minute left on the clock it would be McCann-Diston who would respond after the contentious call to put away his third for the day - five goals between the team's two attacking threats would be reward for effort from a solid team performance in the last of the grading games.

The team will now reset and await to see what division and teams they will be in and up against for the season proper – it is now in their hands how the 22 round regular season will play out.

The grading period has shown that this team has the potential to take it up to the best in the state, it is now time for them to believe in themselves, work hard on the training ground and push for as many positive results as they can over the next 6 months.

Under 18s: Gippsland United def. by Mornington 0-1

Sunday's weather was perfect for the last game of the grading matches against Mornington, and both teams went out confident having shots at goal in the opening minutes.

The game saw a strong return of Lucas Halden after missing the last couple of weeks due to illness.

The teams were evenly matched for the majority of the game with both sides having numerous shots at goals, however Gippsland struggled to convert those chances.

Mornington kept Gippsland's defence busy with Abraham Konyi, Spencer Boughton, Noah Jackson, Jack Middleton and goalkeeper Jedd Foster doing their best to keep Mornington out of their attacking half.

All the boys put in a gallant effort and we saw a great game of soccer but unfortunately the game went Mornington's way with a 1-0 score at the final siren.

Other results:

Under 15s: Gippsland United def. Mornington 5-0.

Under 16s: Gippsland United def. Mornington 7-2.