U.S 2 V 3 Marist Kelburn park 30th may 09 12.30pm

An own goal, a piece of individual brilliance and a well taken free kick are 3 reasons University Stallions we're unable to take all 3 points at the hallowed Kelburn Park on Saturday.

Injuries, a Queens birthday long weekend and the birth of a child meant the Stallions stocks were going to be spread a little thin this weekend,so it was good to see U.S able to field a full team plus a couple of subs against a Marist side looking to move further up the ladder at our expense.

Marist kicked off and Both sides looked to apply pressure from the off, with both sides having a similar green coloured strip the only difference would be the colour of the socks, theirs white, ours well mostly black.

Their first.
The game was about 15 maybe 20 minutes or so old when Marist were given a couple of corners.
The first was saved brilliantly by Graham off the line,Graham had stayed on the left hand goal post and hooked the goal bound ball clear.
The second, we gifted them an own goal, Tangi rising at the front post to try to clear but the ball glanced off the top of his head into the back of the net. Unlucky boy.

Their 2nd.
This was simply individual brilliance, still stung by their cheap goal we found ourselves under a bit of pressure,their #6 got the ball just outside our 18yd box top left side,he then set about turning Jason inside out, not once,not twice but maybe 5 times, then when he finished playing with him he turned to paddy and did the same not as many times but still enough to give him the chance to take a shot on goal and he didn't mess that up either sticking it low into brooks right hand side of goal and all of a sudden we're 2-0 down after 25mins.

Now we were all a bit pissed about that, the goal was brilliant but the way we dealt with him wasn't, heads up we carried on and this time it was our turn to apply pressure on their goal.
Two cracking corners from U.S resulted in nothing but need mentioning as they really showed we can cause problems at set pieces even if we don't train.

Our first goal
We had Fraser who arrived to the ground intending to play for another varsity side but was a few hours early and rather than wait for them to show up he jumped on and had a game for U.S.
Playing out on the left hand side he gave the Marist side trouble from the time he got on the field
gaining the ball out left and delivering it into the middle of the field the ball was picked up by Tristin who loves shooting from anywhere and from about 20 yards sent a shot at the keeper who in all honesty should have saved it but the ball went underneath the keepers legs and was stopped only by the goal net 2-1 35mins gone.

The latter stages of the half I'm going to say was mildly dominated by U.S, we were desperate to get on level terms before the half time break but the equaliser wouldn't come.

2nd half.
With the Stallions wanting to get something from this game we went out and started really well looked dangerous and had more than our fair share of possession.


Their 3rd,
It was a bitter pill when the Marist 3rd goal was scored from what was one of the only forays up the field in the early stages of the 2nd half, against the run of play they had a player brought down, well he did most of it himself it just needed a Stallion to be there to make it look more dramatic.
Sitting 20yards out on the right hand side a Marist player stepped up and with a left foot curled a ball that looked like it was shot in slow motion into the back of the net giving the Marist side a 3-1 lead 60mins gone

The game got a bit feisty after that Marist have a few players who like to start aiming for shin pads first then the ball and words were exchanged between a few players at times about that fact.

The game though was still being played with goods spirits though until two incidents one a crunching tackle by Jason on a Marist player which led to a bit of pushing and shoving but nothing much more,the other was when we were trying to take a free kick in the Marist half and this short little gimp wouldn't move back 10 yards (little prick) so Jason had seen enough of these antics and picked the leprechaun up and drove him back the 10 yards in no uncertain terms.

our 2nd.
Their keeper is screaming to his players "EVERYBODY OUT OF THE BOX, OUT OF THE BOX"
From the resulting free kick we took a shot on goal the ball wasn't claimed by the keeper and with all his players out of the box, he spilled it into the path of Tristin who stuffed it into the back of the net and gave a bit of a chance taking the score to 3-2 70 mins

As hard as we tried our 3rd goal just wouldn't come we put enough pressure on them they held on well and we were left with zero points at the end of a game which we probably should have got at least one

The Stallions unlucky in their first turn at Kelburn park in over two seasons to lose 3-2

Stallions : Ben Brooks,Graham,Tangi,Jason,Mike,Aaron,Patrick,Ben H,Logan,Tristin,Rauru
Subs: Panda, Frasier

Goals U.S : Tristin 35,70