Dandenong Thunder continued its impressive run of form by thrashing St Albans 5-1 at Churchill Reserve in round 25 of the NPL.
Thunder struck first as the visiting side when a corner was flicked on by Saints captain Michael Grgic for an own goal.
This put Dandenong 1-0 up in the 17th minute.
Thunder doubled its lead through some brilliant play from Kyle Taylor, who dribbled down the left side and played in Daniel Clark.
Clark squared it to Hassan Jalloh but Jalloh couldn’t make a connection, leaving it for Ben Djiba to smash it into the roof of the net.
Seven minutes later, Clark and Wade Dekker combined for one of the goals of the season, with Dekker receiving the ball outside the box and playing a short pass into Clark.
Clark’s first touch chipped the entire defence, leading Dekker into space who calmly slotted his shot into the bottom right corner.
At halftime, Dandenong led 3-0 from five shots on target to St Albans’ three.
The hosts pulled one back through a miracle goal in the 75th minute.
The Saints were awarded a corner and Alexander Cepiviroski was the taker.
He fired it in with curl, but it ended up bending all the way in directly from the corner spot to make the score 3-1.
However, any hope of a comeback was dashed when the ball was played into Dante Avian who finished clinically.
In added time, Michael Domfeh added his name to the scoresheet when he was found in space and he utilised a brilliant chip over the keeper to place the ball into the back of the net and push the score to 5-1.
Dandenong and St Albans both had nine shots on target for the game, while the Saints actually had more shots with 18 to Thunder’s 12.
Dandenong remains in third on the table with 16 wins, five draws and four losses.
In round 26, Thunder will visit Genis Steel Stadium to face the fifth-placed Preston Lions.
