Wagga City Wanderers fight back to grab 3-2 victory over ANU

Wanderers coach Dave Leonard was super proud of the group, after they bounced back from a disappointing loss against Queanbeyan City last week.

"I am super stoked," Leonard said.

"It was always going to be a tough match, ANU have been playing solid football for a number of weeks now.

"For the boys to get the result and be really determined even before the game was really pleasing."

ANU hit the scoreboard early when Chase Deans slotted a penalty in the sixth minute to give his side the early lead.

However, it would not last long as the Wanderers hit back through Morris Kadzola in the 23^rd minute to level the scores at 1-1.

ANU would again grab the lead in the 38^th minute when Deans slotted his second goal of the afternoon before Tom Matheson would reply soon afterwards for the Wanderers to level the score at 2-2.

Samson Lucas made the most of a few added minutes of injury time to score just before halftime to give the Wanderers a 3-2 lead heading into the break.

Despite ANU throwing everything at the Wanderers at the back end of the game, they weren't able to find the back of the net and the Wanderers took the three points with a 3-2 victory.

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Leonard was particularly proud of the resilience of his side to fight back not once but twice after they found themselves trailing during the first half.

"We spoke about that at halftime," he said.

"We were obviously going in 3-2 up, but to go down 1-0 and then come back to 1-1 and then go down 2-1.

"We spoke about that resilience to just keep hanging in and believing in each other as well as sticking to our structure.

"In the end it was probably the difference between the two teams to be honest."

Leonard found it hard to select players that stood out from such a good team performance across the board but praised goalkeeper Tim Kross for his work throughout the season so far.

"Tim Kross in goals has been superb all year and I probably don't mention him enough to be honest," he said.

"The amount of times that he has kept us in a game and it was no different yesterday.

"He has been an absolute wall for us all year and he definitely deserves a special mention."

After playing at home for the last few weeks, the Wanderers are back on the road on Saturday where they clash against ladder leaders Tuggeranong United who defeated them 6-1 the last time the two sides played.

"It will be a tough one," Leonard said.

"We sort of believe that we owe them a better game and we know we can provide that."

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