It wasn’t enough to get his side its first points of the season however, as a late injection of pace up front for Leeton United was enough to give the visitors a 3-0 victory in the Griffith District Football Association first grade competition.

“We made the change to put Adam (Raso) up front and it worked,” Leeton assistant coach Joe Trifogli said.

“That's where we got the goals, we just wanted to inject a bit more pace. Once they lost their sweeper we thought we'd put some pace up there and we finally capitalised.”

The game didn’t start off well for City as Joel McClure fell early to injury.

Leeton’s Julian Mandaglio was the first to find the back of the net but was called back after one of his team-mates was deemed offside.

Leeton was trying to use the long legs of Salvatore Amato but couldn’t quite get past the wall of City defenders.

Leeton’s Adam Raso had a chance at point blank to give his side the lead but Lico pulled off the first of his incredible saves on the day.

As half-time crept closer it looked more and more likely that City would concede.

Lico wasn’t about to let that happen.

He made another great save at the near post and was able to keep a clean sheet into the break.

With both teams still scoreless coming out of the sheds it was Leeton who came out the stronger. Lico was still at his best and 10 minutes in made a good one-on-one save.

For the first time all game, City had a golden opportunity to score. Just needing a tap in from six yards out, Nathan Snaidero sprayed his shot wide.

With 15 minutes to go, Leeton’s change to put Raso up front finally paid off.

His initial shot was stopped but lucky for him, the ball found its way back to his feet and then into the back of the net. 1-0 Leeton.

Two minutes later and he had scored again to double the advantage. One more goal in the dying minutes gave Raso his hat-trick and Leeton a well-earned 3-0 win.

“Our performance proved that our locals are pretty good,” Trifogli said. “We wanted our internationals to fight for spots when they come back and that's what our locals have done.”