ILINDEN NEWS

Over the Australia Day long weekend, teams from across the country converged on the Ilinden Sports Centre for the 2017 edition of the Maso Cup. Games were played across four divisions.  At the end of the tournament, we were delighted to win the three divisions we competed in, being the under 19 youth competition, the mens over 35 competition, and we won the first grade competition for the third year running.  A remarkable achievement with games played in front of very healthy crowds at the Ilinden Sports Centre.

We would like to congratulate player coach Paul Reid and assistant coach Matthew Ribarovski, captain Daniel Petkovski and the rest of the team for their achievements.

The final was played against Preston Lions and the game was settled by a second half strike from 2016 player of the year, Blake Riciutto. The team’s run to the final was as follows:

Group games

RCS V Yagoona Lions- draw

RCS V Preston Lions- win

RCS V Newcastle Suns- win

Quarter final

RCS defeated Sydenham Park

Semi final

RCS defeated Wollongong United

Final

RCS defeated Preston Lions

In the over 35 competition, the team managed and coached by Zoran Stefanoski and Jim Eleninovski, and skippered by legend Bill Pilovski, were too strong for their competition with a fine tournament coming to a close with a 8-1 victory over local rivals Arncliffe Scots.  The team have now won 2 of the 3 cups contested in this division.

In the under 19’s, our team, comprising of many of our best young talent took all before them before winning the final against Bankstown City Lions. Stamati Glaros and his team will no doubt look ahead with much optimism for the season proper.

We would like to acknowledge and thank our event partners, namely:

–        FLIP TV for their excellent live broadcast of all fixtures. To sign up to Flip TV, go to their website www.fliptv.com.au

–        Kingsford Smith Transport for transporting all of our travelling teams over the course of the weekend, a huge effort.

–        Cityview Group for cleaning services.

–        Marco Polo foods for donating prizes for the raffle.

Finally, thank you to our hard working committee and volunteers for their tireless efforts over the weekend. It was a remarkable effort from all involved across the three days.