A plucky Spirit FC performance was made to look second rate when Soccersouth premier league leader Caversham struck five goals without reply in a period of play either side of half time at Invercargill’s Surrey Park stadium on Saturday.
Caversham retained its 2 point competition lead over second placed Dunedin Technical as a result of its eventual 6-2 win.
Following heavy
rain the Surrey Park ground was reduced to a bog which was clearly not conducive
to playing quality football and a far cry from the quality Rugby Park surface
normally used.
Spirit had started the game in positive style matching its more illustrious opponent in both possession and teamwork.
Even when, against the run of play, Mike Smith drove a 30 metre free kick into the roof of the Spirit net to give the visitors a 1-nil lead the Spirit players responded with more positive football resulting in an equalising goal from a free kick by player-of-the-day Karl Hawkes.
Caversham re-grouped after that goal and responded in kind when former Queenstown player Breno Dutra slotted the first of his hat trick of goals to put Caversham 2-1 ahead.
A Mark McGregor
strike and a second from Dutra before the half time break took the score to 4-1
in Caversham’s favour and suddenly put the game out of Spirit's reach.
At that stage Spirit had no answer to the slick passing and control of the Caversham players.
Although he did not get on the score sheet, Caversham’s leading goal scorer Tim Cook was controlling the situation with some high quality play.
Within six minutes
of the restart of play after half time Robbie Deeley added another goal for
Caversham and Dutra completed his hat trick to stretch the lead to 6-1.
Cook received an injury in a clash with Spirit keeper Chris Pearson a short time later and with more important games imminent on the Caversham calendar was subbed off by Coach Steve Fleming.
With him (Cook) went the fluency of Caversham’s play and Spirit began to enjoy some freedom around the pitch.
It finally broke
through Caversham’s defensive cordon and Campbell Edwards was rewarded for his
determination, when, in a goalmouth scramble he headed a consolation second goal
for Spirit to end the scoring for the day.
Locally Smiths City Old Boys revitalised interest in the Southland Finance premier league when it beat leader Southend United 2-1 at O’Rorke Park.
The win robbed Southend of a chance to wrap up the title with an un-assailable margin and instead cut its lead to 2 points and gives the Ian Edwards coached Old Boys unit a real chance to grab the honours.
The game was notable for a fine individual goal from Old Boy’s Scott Morton who single-handedly took on the Southend defenders before curling a sweet volley beyond Southend keeper Darren Owen-Eales. Andrew Elder added Old Boys second goal with Ian Watson reducing the deficit for Southend United.
Waihopai stretched its good run of form to three consecutive wins and retained the Larry O’Rorke challenge cup when it accounted for Quinns Pharmacy Gore Wanderers 3-1 at Gore. Chris Jones grabbed a brace of goals for the winner with Chris Langley netting the third.