With no competitive football since the 19th of July, seeing the sun break through what little morning cloud there was would put a smile on footballers faces throughout all of wellington.
A quick check of capital football shows no ground transfer, so 2.30 at Petone memorial it is.
The fact we'd such little football over the last 4 weeks meant that no one wanted to stand down for this weekends game, so Nick G chose to rest Mike B,Panda and Robin.
After 7 odd weeks of none stop rain, the ground wasn't that bad really, having also had a week to dry out there were areas which were muddied bogs mostly in the centre of the pitch and also towards the outer areas of both goal boxes,but in general a nice enough pitch to play div 7 footy on.
It wasn't going to be great viewing, but winning ugly is still winning and both sides were out for three points no matter how they came.
Petone kicked off and so began a Topsy turvy first 15-20 minutes,with both sides having chances around the outer area of the box.
The first chance of the game fell to Petone a corner in from the right which was saved off the line with a clearing header from myself on the left hand post, a second corner shortly after found a Petone head but he smashed it into the ground and thankfully it bounced 9 feet up and over the bar.
Nick had spent several hours the night before,which came after much agonising all week, a rolling subs plan,which turned to shit pretty much straight away, the list was to give everyone 22.5 minutes on the sidelines starting after 22.5Min's, after 12 Min's Jamie who had been on antibiotics was seeing stars and colours so he came off with Tristin subbing in for him,some list. ;)
20 odd mins gone.
With Tristin, Gus and Paddy now in the game, the stallions became a more attacking threat,Gus loves to take the opposition on and really began to give the Petone defenders some problems, with Joe switching from right to left midfield also causing the Petone side some headaches.
On or around 30 Min's I took a throw in from the left channel which Nick G received just inside Petone's half, a long ball into the centre of the box catches Petone's defence out and Tristin is able to latch onto the ball and it bobbles into the back of the net giving us a 1-0 lead.
Petone would have a couple of chances late in the half to equalise,one such chance had them one on one with Brooks,never one to shy away from a hard tackle,Brooks goes in low to get the ball, he manages to deflect the ball away whilst colliding with the Petone striker, which the photos in an earlier post show left him with a nasty cut to the eye area, this would be his last involvement as a player, Jamie finally getting his keeping gloves back on since the warm up episode of round 1.
halftime
We kicked off the second half but the start of the 2nd half was a bit like the Benny hill show, we were asked to ref the 2nd half, Jason (who'd subbed off at h/t) duly came on begrudgingly to ref, after 2mins he realised he didn't have a watch to keep check of the time, then we found a watch and we changed Jason for Brooks who was not going to feature in the game anyway.
Only Petone seemed to show up for the first 10 Min's of the 2nd half oh and the Stallions defence,doing well to keep the attacking Petone side away from goal, the midfield at 6's and 7's with gaps as wide as the grand canyon opening up in the centre of the park.
Nick G was getting more and more fired up by the lack of midfield involvement and made his opinion known, this seemed to spark the boys back into life and after much toiling, some neat passages of play and a throw in,we managed to split the Petone defence again and Gus was on hand to tap the ball into the back of the net 2-0 65 Min's gone
Petone never gave up and were rewarded a great little goal on about the 80min a curling chip shot from just outside the box was too much for Jamie to deal with and the ball would sail into the back of the net giving the Petone side a slim hope of snatching some points,that slim hope soon evaporated.
After an attacking foray into the box, a lazy clearance from Petone found me on the left, i took a bit of a run sent the ball in with a brilliant cross (might as well talk it up, it was brilliant) which found someones head i think Tristin the resultant flick on found another stallion i think Gus who was surrounded by Petone players screaming for offside but the ball was in the back of the net and the goal would stand leaving Petone players fuming and the stallions 3-1 up.
The game would go on for another 5 minutes before the Stallions claimed victory
Stallions starting : Brooks,Graham,Nick G, Jason,Corey,Spencer,Aaron,Ben H,Joe,Nick W,Jamie
subs : Tristin,Gus,Paddy
Goals : Stallions Tristan 30 Gus 65,89
Petone 80
Next week who knows ?
4 comments:
Shit Corey, if we had read this before the fine session we would have had to have given you some mvp points!
Well said.
The non appearance of a new fixtures list on the cap soccer site probably isn't a good sign for next week. If we did play there is the chance of clinching 3rd place from marist - now that would be nice.
Moment of the match definitely that clearance off the line - it was so far gone I thought you must have punched it out!Closely followed by Jason's mighty 30 meter strike that rocketed off the crossbar. I was just inside the box and it came back that far with force for a follow up header chance - which needless to say went wide. Great strike - Gerrard would have been proud.
Oh yeah, and Tristin scoring a birthday hatrick and securing golden boot was an okay effort too.
You putting the fines from last week up Lister?
All in good time, all in good time
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