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Spirit 1, Green Island 2; July 9th
...
Doug and Sue's babies, Matty, Waihopai (left) and Aaron
(new dad of Ruby), Dunedin Tech
who lead the goal-scoring lists in their respective leagues.
Spirit FC registered its fourth successive loss in the Footballsouth Premier
league on Saturday when it was beaten 2-1 by bottom team Green Island at
Sunnyvale near Dunedin.
By comparison the Green Island unit which had failed to gain a win from its
first twelve games has now won three in a row and moved ahead of Grants Braes to
ninth position of the ten teams.
Ironically Grants Braes stunned the league leader Dunedin Technical with a 1-all
draw in their clash on Saturday.
The Kelvin Hotel sponsored Spirit team is now in eighth placing 2 points ahead
of Green Island.
With four age-group players in Auckland attending a New Zealand Football
training camp and Scottish import player Craig Ferguson sitting out a compulsory
suspension Barry Gardiner was forced to make several changes.
Two of them, Waihopai’s Tim Malmstrom and Thistle’s Ali Smith showed they are
clearly capable of playing regularly in the league although both struggled at
times with the pace of the game.
Spirit's Tim Malmstrom effortlessly moves away from his
marker.
(That's
worth a cup-cake for smoko on Monday Tim)
Saturday’s encounter could not have started better for Spirit as they showed
their intention to play attacking football from the outset.
At the four minute mark a Barry
Gardiner cross from the left was headed by a Green Island defender into the path
of Spirit’s Stuart Kent who had a simple tap-in to put the visitor’s 1-nil
ahead.
Stu Kent
The possession trend continued for the next twelve minutes, until as so often
happens when teams don’t capitalise on their advantage, Green Island netted an
equaliser against the run of play.
The goal was a classic break from defence, three swift passes through the Spirit
mid and rear guard to Nathan Gunn who was on hand to volley the ball home.
Green Island then came into the game more and Spirit was at full stretch to keep
the score level until the half time break.
It was the same story in the
second half as Spirit unsettled Green Island’s rhythm for the first fifteen
minutes but again failed to show any goals for the effort.
POD Barry Gardiner (centre maroon) covered a million
miles,
or the equivalent in Kilometres
Green Island then took over the possession stakes and not long after being
subbed on, Mike Court met a Green Island corner kick with precision and headed
the ball past Spirit keeper Ossie Rodriquez to put his team 2-1 in front.
It was ill fate for Rodriquez who only minutes earlier had executed a brilliant
double save at the feet of the Green Island attackers which drew generous
applause from both sections of spectators.
And then there were the "tree people" of which I was one
for a while...
Par-for-the course from the weatherman, it turned to real shite about 2:44.
Just in time for the 2:45 kick off...man it was cold.
It was a different story about
strikers in local football as the leading scorers in Southland Football’s
Premier men’s Donald Gray cup competition Brandon de Garnham, AMP South Old Boys
and Matthew Burgess, EWL Southland Waihopai netted hat tricks for their
respective teams.
In the early game on the ILT turf Old Boys enhanced their lead on the points
table when they crushed Amcal Waikiwi Pharmacy Southend United 3-1 as de Garnham
again showed his scoring talent and Steve Macdonald replied with Southend’s lone
goal.
Waihopai ended Gore Wanderer’s one week tenure with the Larry O’Rorke challenge trophy courtesy of the three second half goals from Burgess.
In doing so Waihopai has set up the prospect of an exciting encounter next Saturday with Old Boys who will be determined to win back the trophy it held for two and a half seasons before Gore won it from them in last week’s upset result.