U.S 1 v 0 Karori Ace's Onepoto pk #1, 11th july 2.30pm

A Ben Hodges tap and a great all round team display were the difference today as the Stallions recorded their 2nd consecutive win and clean sheet shutting out a gritty and determined Karori Ace's 1-0

On a field that looked like rugby had been played, or at least trained on it all week long, playing the ball on the ground would pose some problems but it didn't stop U.S playing some neat football right across the park.

With a number of 1st team starters out with commitments the reserves bench was summoned to front up and fill the void left by those missing members.
Matt and Dan came into a very strong Stallions starting lineup and set the standard early on, attacking football from the back through to front and across the park was going to be the order of the day.

With Jamie reffing the Ace's kicked off towards the road end of the park they quickly found themselves under pressure as the Stallions looked to get an early foothold and dominate the game from the off, the midfield looking to close down any of their movement going forward and our defence bullish and strong but always calm and collected shutting them out with little trouble, it was going to be hard for the Ace's to get much into the box to put U.S under pressure.

Our football going forward was certainly some of the nicest and fluent we've played all season even on the very bobbly field our midfield wasn't afraid of taking on the Ace's from anywhere, Matt especially along with Joe and Ben H all looking to manoeuvre round and set up our strikers Gus and Tristin who themselves did well to turn the Aces defence,with Graham and Spencer linking well down the left flank also it seemed only a matter of time before the dominance would pay off in a goal.

We were given a free kick about 25 yards out just to the right of the centre of goal and Matt had a beautiful curling attempt on the left hand top corner parried away by their keeper to save the aces going 1-0 down early.

Our Goal.
It was definitely a div 7 finish to some top draw build up play that gave U.S the winning goal.
Some neat inter play from our brilliant defenders had the ball move up the right hand side of the field, Tristin held onto it just outside the 18 yard box right hand side and from that a cross was sent into the box across the face of goal to the left hand goalpost where Graham and Ben H were waiting Graham cropped the ball in the groin down to the ground and was forced off the ball by Ben H who tapped it into the goal, pretty harsh on the Ace's really to give up a goal like that but we certainly deserved to be in front 1-0 25mins

The game continued and the Ace's were really determined to get back on equal terms trying to find a gap to send their strikers through, pulling U.S out wide then cutting back in, but our back four were tremendous all game the combination of Jason and Dan in the centre with Joe, Graham and Mike all filling the fullback positions throughout the game completely closing them down and then hitting back by quickly counter attacking this gave U.S some great opportunities to kill the game off but the ace's held strong and some of our final touches due to the ground were just letting U.S down.

The half would end with the game starting to even up a little but the lead still in our favour.

Halftime.
We were pretty happy with our performance thus far but knew we needed to stay focused and sharp right from the start, we let ourselves down the last time we met so it was important too start the better of the two sides.
Jamie couldn't ref his knee had become to painful so we were forced into a reshuffle,Paddy had too shoot off halfway through the first half, his attempt to fool his wife into thinking he'd gotten over the flu so he could play was scuppered when she rang too tell him his boy was sick and he needed to go home right away to tend to him, hope he's alright mate.
Gus took over the reffing duties and our subs bench quickly went from three to one.

2nd half

The game restarted with what now seems our main kickoff tactic the hoof it down the left hand side of the field for the left mid to chase, shame we hadn't told the left mid what we were doing ha ha.
Anyway the Ace's were trying to get up the field and attack U.S early on and while we didn't start the sharpest we quickly got back into the rhythm of the game and made sure they had no chance on our goal ,we went on attack ourselves but just couldn't get the ball to sit right or our shots were way off target, we created a ton of opportunities but couldn't turn them into goals. Matt was totally carving them up all game in the midfield he had a few shots which went just over the top of the crossbar,but as the game carried on it was the Ace's who started to get right back into the game,a nice bit of play by them saw a shot going into the top left hand corner of our goal parried out for a corner by our keeper the resulting corner was pushed clear by the keeper also which fell into the path of an Ace's player whose shot was set well wide of our left hand goal post.

Their best attempt was to come about five minutes later, a corner from our left hand side was sent into the box and an Ace's player had a free header which he hammered in towards the goal only for the grace of Aaron's quick reflexes instinctively sticking his left leg out to it and the ball ricocheted off his knee out into general play where we cleared the ball, a certain goal saved right off the line.

The game would two and fro for the rest of the game and the Stallions would go on to record a well deserved 1-0 victory

Stallions : Corey,Mike,Dan,Jason,Graham,Spencer,Ben H,Matt,Joe,Tristin,Gus.
Subs: Aaron,Panda,Paddy

Goals: Ben H 25mins

next week Marist Cobras @ Nairnville #2 12.30pm