Masterton 0 - 5 Stallions

Another emphatic performance saw the Stallions continue to stride the final furlongs towards promotion.

Powershop's 3-1 win away to Wainuiomata means we still need a point to confirm that promotion, but we have three opportunities to secure that point starting with the first against Wainui ourselves at Anderson Park at 12:30 on Saturday the 1st. No room for complacency as last week's bottom of the table Tawa held Brooklyn to a 0-0 draw over the weekend; who knows what team will show up at Anderson.

Perhaps because of the large distances involved, 11 Stallions arrived with more than half an hour to spare for the first time anyone in the team can remember in a while. In contrast to the dark and stormy Monday night, we had a bright and brisk winter day, albeit with a low sun that was always going to make life tricky for defenses at one end of the pitch.

Thankfully, we only had one ball, sparing ourselves the ignominy of using all of our collective energy prior to kick off. The warm up did appear to pay dividends though, with Stallions' starting much the brighter including two early goals (both making clever use of the square goalposts, who could be justifiably credited with both assists).

This though was the same script that was followed by our first game against Masterton, a game which saw us only just ahead 3-2 at half time. Just as they had previously, they came back at us again in this one, but a combination of some good defending, a few slightly shaky defensive clearances (including from yours truly, again deputising for Paul in goal), and some 'straight down the throat' shooting from them meant that we kept them out, and managed to add a 3rd before half time.

The second half was more of an arm wrestle, and with the sun very low and straight ahead on the horizon and no cap I found myself sporting a permanent Captain Hurricane salute. I'm blaming the lack of complete visibility on my rush out of the box to inadvertently body check Muse, who had an excellent game, in the act of clearing a through ball. In the end the ball went out, to the relief of both of us.

However, we were able to maintain our control, Milky, Heath and Lloyd superb in the middle, and and add to our half time tally, with two well taken goals; the last a very popular strike by Nick White getting off the season's duck.

Masterton were the perfect hosts, providing our team (and the band of familial supporters, many of them over for the weekend) with copious pizza after the match.

Great work Stallions, lets seal the deal on Saturday!