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Green Island 3, Spirit 3; Aug 14th
Spirit FC surrendered a two goal lead twice in their Footballsouth Premier League game against Green Island at Sunnyvale near Dunedin on Saturday before having to settle for a 3-all draw.
The Invercargill based composite team which had deservedly led 2-nil during the first half and then 3-1 in the second gifted Green Island a late equalising own-goal that robbed Spirit of the win and the security of a fifth place final position on the points table.
Spirit has completed its 2010
campaign and now must wait for a series of catch-up game results to learn its
true end-of-season position.
Spirit's Kris Leatherby fends off his opponent and sends
the ball forward in this action.
It was a delight to see the youngster's improvement from "green horn" to a
mature footballer
throughout the campaign and he gets this guys nod if there was a Young
Footballer Of The Year award.
It was also the last outing for
Scottish import Mark Caldow who has played in all Spirit’s 18 games netting 11
goals and currently placed third on the leading goal scorer list.
Caldow who also assisted team-mate and Southland Football Development Officer
Barry Gardiner with junior coaching sessions and programmes during his stay in
the south began his journey home yesterday.
Spirit opened the scoring in Saturdays game in fine style when midfielder
Gardiner struck a thunderbolt shot from 25 metres out that took the slightest of
deflections but was always heading into the net to put his team 1-nil ahead.
White Men can jump, it's Scotsmen who can't as Spirit's
Barry Gardiner is clearly
out contested by his Green Island opponent.
Seven minutes later Matt Webb
was sent clear with a defence splitting pass and he doubled Spirit’s lead with a
well placed effort wide of Nick Grant in the Green Island goal.
The host team fought back gallantly and was rewarded when Jordan Anderson netted
from close range to reduce the margin to 2-1 which it remained through to the
half time break.
Twelve minutes into the second
spell Spirit’s captain and until then a contender for player-of-the-day honours
Brendon Lloyd received a second yellow card and was subsequently sent from the
field.
Spirit's leading goal scorer from last season season Carl
Henderson played most of this year in
a defensive role but showed in the last few games when moved forward he can
still threaten defences
Spirit was unsettled for a few
minutes as it regrouped with ten players but Webb, aided by an unfortunate slip
by goalkeeper Grant, eased the problem when he pounced on a delivery from Caldow
to tap the ball across the line and restore the two goal margin at 3-1.
Matt Webb (maroon) seen here challenging for the ball also
had a fine season on the left flank
and picked up a few goals on the way, none better than his "remarkable 20cm
tap-in"
following the keeper slipping over in today's game.
It was pure magic.....yes I can be bluntly honest at times.
From a corner kick at the thirty five minute mark Green Island’s Dan Rutter was unchallenged as he headed past Spirit stand in keeper Shane Harpur to give his team renewed hope by reducing the deficit back to one goal at 3-2.
The last scoring act was still to come though and when Spirit defender Kieran van Loon attempted to clear the ball away to the safety of a corner kick he uncharacteristically misdirected the effort and instead volleyed the ball past Harpur for an own-goal that any striker would have been proud of.
Spirit was in desperate
defensive mode for the remaining eight minutes but held on valiantly to the 3-3
score line to retain at least a share of the points on offer.
The Southland Men’s end-of-season Charity Cup competition began on Saturday with
Arrow International Waihopai and Ascot Sportsman’s Bar Queens Park moving
through to the quarter finals with wins.
Waihopai came out on top in a
goal feast beating its Southbuild ITM Winton opponents 8-6 after extra time was
needed to separate them from a normal time 5-all draw.
Queens Park had no such struggle and eliminated Malloch McClean Riverton 5-2 in
the other fixture.