Southend United with a somewhat scrappy 1-nil win over arch rival McLellan Motors Queens Park enhanced its lead in the Southland Finance premier league at O’Rorke Park.
The day turned “all-good” for the Gerard Wyering coached Southend team when it learned that Waihopai had upset Smiths City Old Boys 3-2 at Waverley Park.
That result meant Southend’s 2 point lead became 5 and for the first time in the competition a team (Southend) has a point’s cushion that may be enough to take it through to the title.
Southend was struggling to get the advantage over a determined Queens Park effort on Saturday but was given the chance to gain the upper hand when Park’s Ashley Hughes was sent from the field for a lunging tackle on Southend’s Matty Wahren.
Southend was quick
to capitalise on Park’s reduced number of players and its next attacking move
ended with Jason Hutchby slotting home the only goal of the game.
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Waihopai came from behind in its game against Old Boys with a brace of goals from Brent DeRuyter and a Chris Langley strike cancelling out Old Boys goals from Scott Morton and Blair Maddison.
Spirit FC slipped one position to sixth on the Soccersouth premier league points table when it was beaten 2-1 by Roslyn Wakari in Dunedin on Saturday.
South Canterbury leapfrogged Spirit into fifth position albeit on a one goal goal-difference calculation when it overcame University by a similar score in Timaru.
Spirit player coach Ken Cresswell was pleased with the standard of football and commitment his team produced against the more formidable Roslyn unit and was philosophical about two incidents that impacted on what could have been a more favourable outcome.
“These things happen to the best of teams and the lads showed character by keeping their composure and denying Roslyn any addition to its scoreline.” Cresswell said.
Early in the second half and just after Roslyn’s Ben Keat had netted the goal that proved to be the winner for his team, Spirit defender Matty Burgess was sent from the field for a dissent infringement against the referee.
Cresswell was adamant the dissent did not justify the instant red-card punishment.
Twenty minutes later with Roslyn clinging to its 2-1 lead Cresswell brought Australian born Billy Haslam into the action from the subs bench and Haslam immediately won a penalty for Spirit when he was unceremoniously upended in the penalty area.
However the normally reliable John Schol, Spirit’s leading goal scorer, failed to score from the resultant penalty kick and Spirit lost the opportunity to draw level.
Keat had put his Roslyn team ahead 1-nil midway through the first half with a rocket like volley that gave Spirit keeper Chris Pearson no chance of a save.
However Schol responded in style for Spirit with a finely judged effort of his own to send the teams to the half time break locked at 1-apiece.
Following Burgess’s demise Spirit’s defence was able to hold Roslyn to its slender lead for the rest of the game thanks in no small way to a player-of-the-day performance from Jason McMath.