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Spirit 0, Queenstown 2; May 22nd
Spirit FC’s effort to lift itself from the depths of the Footballsouth premier league points table suffered another blow on Saturday when it was beaten 2-nil by Queenstown Rovers at Turnbull Thompson park in Invercargill.
The locals remain in ninth position in the ten team league in a competition that is looking ominous for the rest as joint leaders Caversham and Dunedin Technical stretched the gap to their nearest rivals to seven points with convincing wins over Mosgiel and Green Island respectively.
| 1 |
 |
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Caversham | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 29 | 7 | 22 | 19 | 2.7 |
| 2 |
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Dn Technical | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 21 | 3 | 18 | 19 | 2.7 |
| 3 |
 |
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Roslyn Wakari | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 12 | 3 | 12 | 1.7 |
| 4 |
 |
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Mosgiel | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 12 | 3 | 10 | 1.4 |
| 5 |
|
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Queenstown Rovers | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 12 | 1 | 10 | 1.4 |
| 6 |
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University | 7 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 13 | 14 | -1 | 9 | 1.3 |
| 7 |
|
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Northern | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 16 | -6 | 7 | 1.0 |
| 8 |
|
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Grants Braes | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 18 | -8 | 7 | 1.0 |
| 9 |
|
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Spirit FC | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 12 | 25 | -13 | 4 | 0.6 |
| 10 |
|
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Green Island | 7 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 23 | -19 | 3 | 0.4 |
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The message is clear for
Southland Football; if the Spirit player-coach role is to continue then the
incumbent Barry Gardiner needs greater support from the sideline.
Week in and week out Spirit’s opponents implement and adjust their game strategy
from the wide view of the technical area through non-playing coaches however
Gardiner must do it from the playing field.
Gardiner is arguably the best player in the Spirit team and his general play is
being affected by the dimension of the role restricting him focussing solely on
his own playing performance.
On Saturday Spirit’s all round play was equal to that of the
visiting Queenstown team but in attack some players made choices that negated
the move that led to a goal scoring opportunity.
Spirit's Mark Caldow (with ball) was a marked man but when
he did get free of the shackles
he was not on song with his finishing touches.
Queenstown netted both their
goals in the first half of the encounter despite Spirit having equal or more
opportunities to do so.
Sam Jasper put the resort team ahead 1-nil at the fifteen minute mark, when,
grateful for the space he was allowed he hit a venomous shot from some 25 yards
out that left Spirit goalkeeper Oswaldo Rodriguez groping for air as it sailed
into the Spirit net.
On the stroke of half time a swift accurate passing move ended with Nick Bishop
doubling Queenstown’s lead to 2-nil.
In between times the Spirit
attackers had squandered three golden opportunities to get themselves back into
contention with one-on-one chances being directed straight to the Queenstown
keeper Dan Bociatos.
"Danny Boy" say's i'll have this one thanks to Spirit's
Carl Henderson.
Perhaps some credit should go to the keeper for his positioning but nevertheless
they were opportunities too good to miss.
In the second half Spirit
tightened it’s grip on Queenstown’s troublesome attacking duo of Carlos Herrmann
and Jasper with solid work from Stephen Black and in particular Gore youngster
Kieran van Loon
Van Loon in typical go forward pose.
while Gardiner and Queenstown’s evergreen Ross Mackenzie had an interesting duel
as both attempted to control the mid-field play.
The visitors did get the upper
hand at times but the upright came to Spirit’s assistance on two occasions in
the game helping them to prevent any further Queenstown scoring.
AMP South Old Boys with successive wins over arch rival Eyeview Queens Park
showed that their shaky start to the season could be behind them when they
accounted for Park 2-nil at Waverley park in the feature men’s premier game.
Brandon De Garnham and Brendon
Robinson contributed Old Boys goals for which goalkeeper Shane Elliott had a
confident game protecting the Old Boys net.
At Bain Park Southend United dominated their opponent Invercargill Brewery
Waihopai to the tune of 5 goals to 1 with Brandon Brookland and Matty Wahren
netting two goals apiece while Nic Barclay added the other.
Southend lead the competition from joint second placed Waihopai and Old Boys.
Saturday’s games were marred by a series of red-cards as Waihopai’s Shay Mera, Queens Park’s Cory Johnson and Old Boys Jeremy Dix were all sent for early showers.
Queenstown Rovers women’s team proved
their recent form improvement in the Southland Women’s premier
league to be no flash-in the-pan when they held the powerful Malloch McClean
Riverton unit to a 4-all draw in a thrilling game
at O’Rorke Park near Invercargill yesterday.
Riverton with only ten players took a 2-1 lead to the half time break.
The teams then exchanged goal-for-goal in the second spell with the visitors grabbing the final equaliser four minutes from full time.
Sahara MacDonald (2) and Bekah Vbhik (2)
netted for Queenstown while Jessica Mallon (2), Nina Shields and
Stephanie West replied for Riverton.
Competition leader Sinderella’s Southend
United made no race of their clash with Southbuild ITM Winton winning the
game 8-nil.
Tove Crosswell (3), Jackie Robertson (2), Jaala Bartlett, Amber Rennie and
Hilary Larson doing the
damage for Southend.