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Donald Gray - Old Boys 4, Thistle 3; June 18th
Old Boys stretched its winning streak in the Donald Gray cup football competition to eight from eight games when they beat Computer Supplyline Thistle 4-3 at the ILT Football Turf in Invercargill on Saturday.
The AMP South sponsored Old Boys team has compiled an envious record in the competition as it last tasted defeat on August 30th 2008.
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Phases of the moon: 1:
9:
17:
24:
31:
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could account for Park's extra effort.
Saturday was its twenty eighth un-broken run of defences for the O’Rorke
challenge cup and it is heading for its fourth consecutive championship title.
An important factor in the team’s proud record throughout this time has been,
and still is, their fitness level which has allowed them to comfortably play out
the full ninety minutes while on many occasions their opponents have simply run
out of puff.
Ironically Saturday’s game was not one of those occasions as twice Old Boys
seemed to be cruising to a comfortable win but were then forced into defensive
mode to hold out fight-backs from the resilient Thistle unit.
Thistles Craig Sutherland (to be seen in several pics)
epitomised the Thistle resilience as he
moves away from the chasing Scott Kiddey
An early goal to Old Boys Aaron Whitaker opened the scoring for the afternoon to
put his team 1-nil ahead.
That was followed closely by a Scott Kiddey strike to double the lead to 2-nil.
Thistle’s Keith Hawkes grabbed
one back to give the score some respectability at 2-1 going into the half time
break.
Old Boys Jeremy Dix reinstated the 2 goal lead to Old Boys when he scored to
make it 3-1 early in the second half.
Old Boys coach Ignacio Sande then replaced two of his Spirit FC players Kris
Leatherby and Matt Webb in a move that surprised most spectators.
Matt Webb (Red) about to be challenged by Thistle's Craig
Sutherland...
Kris Leatherby heads for Craig as well...
Maybe there was a Graham Henry/Alex Ferguson type instruction from Spirit coach
Barry Gardiner
to Ignacio to sub Matt & Kris off....
However the change seemed to have little effect as moments later Scott Mackenzie
powered in a header to stretch Old Boys lead to 4-1 and apparently shut the game
down for Thistle.
Far from that, it was the
catalyst for an upsurge in effort from the Thistle players and Karl Hawkes with
a stinging volley reduced the deficit to 4-2 before a perfectly placed drive
from Stephen Black into the bottom corner of the Old Boys net gave renewed hope
to the blues at 4-3.
Stevie Black went well in his new role as
defensive-striker.
(Oops!! I missed Craig from this pic)
The last 10 minutes was comprised of attack and counter attack as Thistle sensed
the chance of an unlikely draw or a maybe a historic win while Old Boys found
their proud run of wins under threat.
Players fair poured into the Old Boys penalty area (16 of
them) for Thistles last attack of the day
but Ossie shut them out...
As any good team does Old Boys held out and will now face its closest rival
Eyeview Queens Park next Saturday in a game, which if they win, will give them
one hand on the trophy even with 6 games remaining.
Domnik Katvick proved his return to goal scoring form recently is no fluke with a brace of goals for Park while Mark Pearson and Ashley Hughes chimed in with a goal each.
Matty Burgess netted Waihopai’s only goal.
After their 4-1 loss last week it was business as usual for Gore Wanderers in Gore when they lost by a one goal margin, 2-1, to Waikiwi Amcal Southend United. It was the Gore team’s sixth loss by a solitary goal from its 8 games played.
Andrew Ridden and Roman Barrie netted Southend’s goals while Morgan Greene responded with a penalty goal for Gore.
The Southland women’s games played yesterday went with form
as Sinderellas Southend United
convincingly beat Thistle 13-nil, Southbuild ITM Winton accounted for East End
Liquor Queens Park 6-nil
and Macalisters Barristers & Solicitors Old Boys held out Malloch McLean
Waihopai 3-1.
Southend’s win came courtesy of goals
from Nicole McMath 4, Tove Crosswell 3, Jackie Robertson 3,
Amber Rennie 1 and 2 Thistle own goals.
Old Boys win enabled them to move 3 points clear of their Waihopai opponent as
the teams shared third
and fourth placing with 16 points each at the start of the day.
Sammi Murrell netted all three Old Boys goals and Ashley Gordon Waihopai's.
Winton’s win at Winton featured a hat trick of goals from in-form striker Paige
Harland.
in the week as they won by default from JK Stevenson Queens Park.