Melbourne Knights captain Ivan Franjic received the most votes by the NPLM commentators between rounds 12-15 to be crowned the May Player of the Month.
The Knights enjoyed a fantastic month, defeating Dandenong, Heidelberg, and St Albans, before drawing with Oakleigh last weekend which sees them entrenched within the top four.
Franjic said it was good to see his side get on a run, however, there was more work to be done.
As a team we are progressing well, we had a slow start but I think we are unbeaten with the cup in 10 or 11 matches,” he said.
“We have been on a good run but saying that as well we are a long way off the top credit to the top teams, they keep winning as well.”
Despite impressively possessing the fourth best defence and attack in the league, the most pleasing aspect of the last month for Franjic was when the Knights were able to help keep back-to-back clean sheets in Rounds 12 and 13.
“We all know attackers win games, but defenders win championships,” Franjic explained.
“Before this month we had only kept one clean sheet (Round 4 v Bentleigh Greens) this season and it was something we wanted to improve on as a team.
“Defending starts from the front, we work as a unit and try to let as little service come through our backline as possible and when it does, we have been working on ways to deal with it.”
In Round 16, the Knights come up against South Melbourne in the original Melbourne derby in front of their home crowd.
When the two sides met earlier this season, South Melbourne claimed all three points at Lakeside Stadium, but on the back eight games unbeaten, the Knights will look to close the gap on the top three with a victory over the old rival.
“The original derby is always a big match, growing up this was my favourite match to go to back in the NSL days,” Franjic said.
“South is sitting top two and that is somewhere we want to be, so we are going to give a good account of ourselves.
“We know what South do, they are a pretty predictable team and we have been working on our we can nullity them and play to our strengths during the week.”