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Spirit 2, Northern 4; April 17th
Dunedin visitors Northern stole
a march on Spirit FC when winning their Footballsouth premier league clash on
Saturday by 4 goals to 2 on Invercargill’s new artificial turf at Turnbull
Thomson Park and consigned the Invercargill team to bottom place in the ten team
competition.
The game followed a local curtain-raiser between Invercargill Brewery Waihopai
and Southend United on the field and comments on the playing surface were
glowing in their praise of the new development.
Terry McNamara who refereed the
early game expressed his opinion that the cushioning effect definitely helped
his recovery time from his ninety minutes of movement while Waihopai’s hat trick
hero for the game Chris Jones felt the ball moved more slowly across the surface
but clearly much more accurately.
“It’s first class though and in time people will adapt to the speed of the
ball”, Jones said.
Assistant coach of the visiting Northern team Dave Martin-Chambers was very
enthusiastic on the facility,
perhaps swayed a little by his team’s success.
His hope is that all future games will use the surface as opposed to grass
venues.
In the main game both teams were seeking their first win of the season and it
was former Roslyn Wakari stalwart striker Sean Brand with an opportunist hat
trick of goals that tipped the balance in his newly adopted Northern team’s
favour.
Brand’s general play was just too sharp for his Spirit opponents and the three
goals were a fair reward for his man-of-the-match effort.
Northern's Sean Brand still head & shoulders above the
rest....
Spirit opened the scoring after dominating the first fifteen minutes of play,
when, after some good work on the left flank Matt Webb slipped the ball across
the face of goal to the waiting Carl Henderson who slotted it into the Northern
net.
Spirit's Matt Webb had the Northeners's on the run a few
times he did....
However it was Northern who
responded to the goal with more purpose and from a corner kick after a period of
attacking play Brand was on hand to level the score at 1-all when the Spirit
keeper failed to claim to ball.
On the stroke of half time a rebounded Spirit defensive clearance fell to feet
of Brand who slipped past an opponent to give Northern a 2-1 advantage.
Eight minutes into the second half a slick move from defence to attack by Spirit
ended with Barry Gardiner outwitting the Northern defenders and his cross was
met by Henderson who claimed his second goal and tied the game up at 2-apiece.
Spirit's Barry Gardiner (Maroon) and Northern's Simon
Collins are a study-of-concentration
as the ball hangs in the air.
Northern's Mario Ray as on hand
ten minutes later to stab in a goal from a goalmouth melee to put his team ahead
3-2 and the game was as good as over for Spirit when two minutes later Brand
scored with a narrow angled shot to double Northern’s advantage to 4-2 and
complete the day’s scoring.
Spirit's Morgan McCarrison (left) and Marty Caldow did a
fair bit of chasing as seen here...
A flurry of substitutions by Spirit enabled them to keep Northern at bay but the Dunedin team effectively shut up shop in the latter stages to protect its lead.
A last gasp goal from AMP South
Old Boy’s Brandon de Garnham secured a 1-all draw for his team against arch
rival McLellan Motors Queens Park in the opening Southland men’s premier game of
the season and ensured Old Boys retained the Larry O’Rorke trophy. Matty Burgess
had earlier stroked home a penalty for Queens Park.
Old Boy's de Garnham followed up a couple of preseason hat
trick efforts
with Saturday's crucial equalising goal...
Waihopai with goals from Chris Jones 3, Matty McDowell, Brett McMurdo and Adrian Fonoti was too good for Southend United for whom Andrew Ridden and Nic Barclay netted in the 6-2 result.
Goals From Gabrielle Berger Sidwell and Susan Boniface kept Winton’s win record intact after
two rounds of the Women’s premier competition.
The Central Southlanders defeated Old Boys 2-1 with Lydia Gray netting Old Boys lone goal.
Southend United also made it two from two with a convincing 9-nil win over Thistle.
Hayley McIntyre grabbed a hat trick of goals for Southend while Tove Crosswell, Jackie Robertson and
Hilary Larson netted two each.