by Shaun Moran - Melbourne Football

A season that threatened to be derailed three rounds in is slowly regaining its verve for the men from Pascoe Vale.

Losses to Heidelberg, Port Melbourne and Northcote City made for anything but an ideal start to 2015 and meant that anything less than three points against the highly touted Oakleigh would have been disastrous.

With the pressure on, Vitale Ferrante’s men rose to the challenge, putting together an exemplary display against the visitors, holding on for a 1-0 conquest.

“It was a big win for us,” Ferrante told Mfootball.

“I thought the game was won with a fantastic first half of quality attacking football. We really took the game to them and then put in a very professional second half.

“We were very good in possession, caused Oakleigh problems going forward and defensively kept our discipline and we were very hard to break down.”

The form of striker Jake Nakic has been something to behold for Paco, netting twice in as many league matches. Formerly on the books of Port Melbourne and Melbourne Victory, the talented forward is tipped to have a big part to play in the Vale’s renaissance.
“Jake has been in great form,” he said.

“He has worked extremely hard in pre-season on his off the ball work rate and now that work is starting to pay dividends for him.”
Oakleigh is the first scalp in many that the Vale are attempting to claim on their rise up the table as they attempt to use the Cannons result as a fillip to their campaign.

“It was a great way of getting off the mark.

“We have been unfortunate the previous two weeks not to get results. We’ve worked on tidying up a few small things and put it all together against Oakleigh.

“We know what we are capable of and what we can do.”