SO MANY chances and virtually nothing to show for them . . .
That was the sorry story after yet another game of frustration for Blacktown Spartans FC, this time against South Coast Wolves in Wollongong on Saturday.
The Wolves consolidated their hold on second in the Football NSW Premier League with a 2-1 win over Spartans.
But, oh, what might have been.
"Someone marked it down as 17 chances for us and we could've had six goals tonight but in the end we got nothing out of it," said Spartans manager Ben de Haan.
"It's really frustrating for the boys."
On the other hand . . .
"It's the best we've played this season," he said.
The promoted Spartans dominated for much of the game and have at least shown they can be competitive against anyone in the bigger time and they have a win and a draw from five matches.
Their season is really far from gone.
After a scoreless first half on Saturday, Cameron Littler finished a great run and cross by Jack Keating, giving South Coast the lead early in the second half.
Then the hosts' Peter Simonovski made it 2-0 from a corner that was played short.
The Spartans finally converted one of their chances when Louis Bozanic headed in after 68 minutes.
Still, the the unconverted chances continued.
It took a brilliant goalkeeping performance from the Wolves' Daniel Collinson to deny them several times.
The Spartans had the compensation of supplying the man of the match in Sean Mitchell, however.
The Spartans, on four points, will host Sutherland Sharks, two points above them, at Blacktown International Sportspark this Saturday night.