One for the Southland Finance premier lads....
Plenty of concerned Old Boys faces here as Park's Ash Hughes tries to
get onto a Jonny Cox free-kick in the early game at Waverley Park.
Spirit 3, Grants Braes 2; May 3rd
Spirit FC showed strong character in its Soccersouth premier league game against Grants Braes when it fought back from imminent defeat to win the encounter 3-2 at Invercargill’s Rugby Park on Saturday.
As they have been
all season, Spirit’s Barry Gardiner in mid field and Adam Letts in central
defence were the main players in their team’s recovery from being a goal down
after having taken an early lead.
The benefit of selector-coach Ken Cresswell being able to select similar combinations each week is beginning to show up in Spirit’s performances.
The early unsettled play that plagued its earlier games is disappearing and being replaced with a new found confidence.
Spirit started with
that confidence on Saturday and after squandering two gilt edged chances in its
opening attacks took the lead at the seven minute mark when a well worked move
started from defence by Hamish Low ended with Gardiner driving the ball wide of
the Grants Braes keeper to put Spirit ahead 1-nil.
Despite Spirit dominating play Grants Braes scored the goal of the day to equalise at 1-all when twelve minutes later Ben Eder volleyed an unstoppable shot high into the Spirit net from 30 metres out.
This gave the visitor a timely boost and it responded with its best period of play and a goal from Chris Owens to take the lead 2 goals to 1.
On another day Spirit may well have been shell shocked by the turn of events but not on Saturday when from the kick off the ball found its way to Stuart Kent on the right flank and he muscled his way past his marker before hammering the goal that tied the scores up at 2-all.
The teams went to the halftime break with the 2-2 scoreline and at that stage it was anyone’s game for the taking.
Both teams lifted
their work rate after the break and the small crowd in attendance was treated to
some enterprising end to end football as each team tried to gain the initiative.
Letts was marshalling the Spirit defence superbly and goalkeeper Chris Pearson was guarding his goal a little more closely than he did in the first forty-five minutes.
Twenty minutes into the half Spirit found itself in front again when Gardiner made a strong run down the left side of the pitch.
He unselfishly released a fine pass across goal to the waiting Wade Griffin who angled his shot past the Grants Braes keeper to give Spirit its 3-2 advantage.
The win keeps Spirit in fifth placing on the points table with three wins from five games but with the three leaders Technical, Roslyn and Green Island all having convincing wins and Caversham having the bye the pressure is still on to improve or at least sustain its placing in the remaining games in round one.
An early second
half goal from Scott Kiddey earned his Old Boys team a 1-nil win against
McLellan Motors Queens Park in the early Southland Finance premier league game.
Old Boys win was built around its strong defensive unit of Reuben Lindsay, Gordy Lamont, Scott McKenzie and Lindsay Newson.
In the late game Southend United’s John Ferguson made his mark with a hat trick of goals as the title holder accounted for Waihopai 3 goals to 1.
Ercel Kizilay grabbed Waihopai’s consolation goal.