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Spirit 3, Grants Braes 4; July 10th
After conceding two early goals Spirit FC was forced to play catch-up football for the rest of its Footballsouth Premier League clash with Grants Braes at Turnbull Thompson in Invercargill on Saturday.
Spirit eventually levelled the
score at 3-all in the second spell but it was short lived and the Dunedin
visitors took out the game 4-3.
Spirit supporter "LC" turns away and sheds a tear in her
handlers lap after
Grants Braes Shannon Cox landed the winning goal...
Grants Braes Shannon Cox fired a warning shot at the three minute mark in the game when he rifled a strong volley across the face of goal but wide of Spirit keeper Oswaldo Rodriquez.
One minute later Cox was allowed the space and time to repeat the effort but this time he did it with deadly precision to put his team 1-nil ahead.
Ten minutes later Grants Braes went further ahead when Peter Alcock cleverly met the ball from a free kick ahead of the waiting Rodriquez and headed it past the keeper to double his team’s advantage to 2-nil.
Spirit at this stage was
desperately trying to get back into the game and was playing the football to do
so but being constantly thwarted by Grants Braes solid four man defensive
line-up.
The Spirit attackers challenge a corner kick while Grants
Braes defenders defend it.
Now who do you think got the ball ?....and it wasn't the Times photographer.
The half time break could not
come quick enough for player coach Barry Gardiner’s charges to regroup and
review the situation.
Twelve minutes into the second half Spirit’s leading goal scorer Mark Caldow
reduced the deficit to 2-1 when he glanced a header into the visitor’s goal from
a Gardiner free kick.
The goal moved Caldow to 10 for the season, one behind the league’s leading
marksman Aaron Burgess (Dunedin Tech).
Grants Braes responded to the goal like a good team should when three minutes later Newton Rewi pounced on a Spirit defensive mistake to restore his teams lead to 2 goals at 3-1.
Spirit began to dominate the
game for a period and was rewarded with the goal of the day, a stunning 20 metre
drive from Carl Henderson that reduced the visitors lead to 3-2.
Spirit's Kris Leatherby (Maroon right) turned in the P O D
performance for my money.
The young defender played out of his skin confirming he is a footballer of the
future.
Seven minutes later it was all square at 3-apiece thanks to a piece of sublime ball control and an accurate volley from Spirit’s Morgan McCarrison.
However the afternoon’s drama
had one more act, and, as the Spirit supporters were still heaving a sigh of
relief Grants Braes was awarded a free kick some 25 metres from goal.
Cox powerfully struck the ball over the head of Rodriquez into the Spirit goal
to regain the lead 4-3 and ensure Grants Braes completed a brace of wins over
Spirit, having won the first round encounter 5-3 in Dunedin.
Caversham moved closer to
achieving another Premier title when they defeated top-team Dunedin Tech 2-1 in
Dunedin.
Caversham, which is balancing its league endeavour with a successful Chatham Cup
run is three points behind Tech but has two games in hand.
At O’Rorke Park near
Invercargill the Southland senior men’s Premier leader AMP South Old Boys was
stretched to the limit by a determined Gore Wanderers effort and needed a lone
second half goal from Johnny Fosbender to break the nil-all deadlock and secure
a 1-nil win.
Eyeview Queens Park kept their title challenge in view when they accounted for
Southend United at Bain Park.
Two goals in five minutes, one a Scott Morton penalty the other an unfortunate
Southend own-goal paved the way for Park’s win.
Nic Barclay gave Southend some hope when he reduced the score to 2-1 just before
the half time break but Juan Rudolph sealed the game for Park at 3-1 with his
second half goal.
There is no change in the top three
positions on the Women’s Premier League table following yesterdays games
as all three had convincing wins.
Malloch McClean Riverton 4-nil over Thistle, Sinderella's Southend United 8-1
over Old Boys
and Queenstown Rovers 9-3 over Southbuild ITM Winton.
It was however a good day out for the
leading goal scorers with Tove Crosswell (26) taking the outright lead
with 5 in Southend’s win, Jessica Mallon (25) in close pursuit with all 4 for
Riverton and Sahara MacDonald (21)
netting 4 for the resort team.