U.S 4 v 2 Karori Aces Karori park #2 12.30pm Sat 29th August 09

Last game of the season and what a beautiful day it was too warm & sunny ideal for playing football.

Shame we were playing at Karori park.

With 15 Stallions all eager to play in the last game of the season the trick would be trying to give everyone equal game time.

We got too the ground early and on inspecting the field found that one half was like a carpet, beautiful, the other down the middle was like mudflats in Manukau harbour, the sides not so bad but W.C.C hang your heads in shame, it hasn't really rained for long periods in 4 weeks, a joke in my opinion given the money spent revamping the ground.

Needless to say we took the good end to warm up with, had a penalty shoot out comp to determine well nothing really we just don't do drills in the Stallions.

With the team lining up as it was the week before, a real ref and Karori looking up for a good battle today the game began with U.S heading towards the shite end of the Park and the Aces towards the stream end .

Aces score early.
It would be fair to say the Aces started the brighter of the two teams, we seemed to take a while to get into the game and the Aces moved the ball around well.
Our defence was tested early they had a striker/winger who had a good burst of pace ,we got caught out twice with two nice through balls that split our defenders and were lucky to deal with the first attempt by the Aces but not the 2nd.
The Aces #10 getting in behind our back four and took a shot on goal that Brooks was unable to get near 1-0 Aces 7 mins

That spurred a bit of action out of U.S and we went on the attack moving the ball around we pushed forward using the width really well a looking to hold onto the football as much as possible probing away at the aces looking for an opening.


Stallions equalise
With the subs now rolling on and off in quick succession Panda found himself up front as a striker he got onto the end of a through ball from Lloyd I think, took the ball into the box and from the acutest of angles just outside the 6 yard box right hand side rifled a ball into the back of the net an absolute stunner one to savour 1-1 20mins (so happy with his effort he subbed off)


That was the start of the Stallions taking control we began to really dominate and move the ball around the park nicely sure the aces had their chances but i reckon we played the better football


Stallions take the lead
I think we got a free kick out on the right midway into the Aces part of the field which Paddy sent into the box there was a goal mouth scramble I think Aaron took a shot which was parried by the keeper or blocked and Lloyd got on the end of the ball hammering it into the net giving U.S the lead 2-1 30 mins

The game opened up a bit after that we began to hold onto the ball and move it around but in the Aces half of the field it was hard work with the pitch so crap you'd get stuck in the bogs trying to turn, the half would finish with U.S leading 2-1

2nd Half.
We were the team to start the brightest and with U.S kicking off our old faithful was put into action the tap and hoof to deep left field, only this time it worked well sort of, Gus ran his ass off kept the ball in play and took on the defence and we were given a corner kick which they cleared but the ploy worked.

The game plan from U.S was simple keep the ball in their end of the park and attack them, if we got stuck in our end of the field it would be difficult to defend due to the mud bath it had become.


The Aces equalise.
It was never going to be easy to keep the Aces penned in their own half and we found ourselves a number of times dealing with long balls sent deep and out wide mostly to the right hand side. one of these resulted in the Aces scoring, they picked up the ball out right cut across the field beating one of our defending players and curled one from 18 yards out past me then the despairing Ben Brooks to make the score 2-2 60 mins ?

Oh well it was a well taken goal you can't deny that.

We went back on the attack we pushed forward and the game really started to open up using the width really well and moving the ball around we were awarded a number of corner kicks


We take the lead again.
A corner out right was sent in by Gus, it was cleared out by the Aces, but it went straight back to Gus, he took the ball from just outside the 18yard box about nine yards from the goal line ran into four defenders which he beat with ease and hooked a left footer so hard into the back of the net it almost burst through the other side amazing solo effort goal of the off season I reckon (well maybe Pandas was better ) 3-2 70mins

It got all end to end after that we pushed forward they pushed forward, but we looked pretty comfortable with 20 mins left so we looked to enjoy the last minutes left in the season and moved some players around.


PENALTY!!!
Lloyd was having another awesome game in the midfield and he put this lovely ball through which split the aces defence much like they did to U.S for their first goal which Rauru ran onto perfectly going one on one with keeper he was brought down form behind from an Aces defender the ref no option but to award a penalty
Rauru stepped up and with no problem at all popped the ball to the back of the net 4-2 80mins


The Aces had no show of coming back now the game would finish 4-2 to the Stallions.

A great way to finish off what has been a terrific season all round for U.S and now leaves most with the fear of finding something else to do with their Saturdays it's a hell of a long off season

Stallions :Ben Brooks,Joe,Tangi,Jason,Mike,Aaron,Ben Hodges,Lloyd,Graham,Gus,Rauru
Subs :Spencer,Corey,Panda,Paddy

Goals: Panda(20),Lloyd(30),Gus(70)Rauru (80)(p)

Aces (7),(60)