Good effort today Stallions, but unfortunately all our
opposition for top spots also had big wins.
CAPITAL 7: Nth Wgtn Varsity 5 Uni Raiders 0 University 4th XI 1 Wgtn United Elite 1 Lower Hutt City 1 Uni Stallions 5 SV Killer Bees 1 Marist Cobras 5
P W D L GF GA Pts University 4th XI 11 7 2 2 25 21 23 Marist Cobras 11 5 3 3 30 24 18 Nth Wgtn Varsity 11 4 5 2 28 18 17 Uni Stallions 11 4 5 2 23 16 17 Lower Hutt City 11 5 2 4 35 30 17 Wgtn United Elite 11 3 3 5 22 26 12 Uni Raiders 11 3 0 8 17 37 9 SV Killer Bees 11 2 2 7 26 34 8
10 comments:
On the positive side, our winning margin yesterday kept us in the race goal difference-wise. Still ahead of the Cobras, and not out of Nth Wgtn's reach.
Go the Best Defence in the league!
Great result, lads.
Top result lads. Wots hapnd to LHC?
Who scored, damn it missed out again. Panda
Yeah Panda, we kept looking for you on the horizon, late, cheeky grin, celebration all ready ...
Great result - Rauru picked up 4 - 1 from the spot. Potential goal of the season candidates? The header was pretty nice, but that last one clipped into the bottom corner was class. Nicely done Rauru - that golden boot's slipping away Tristin! Nick G picked up the scraps off a glorious shot of the post by Paddy for the other.
No MVP points awarded either - so suggestions please. Hard to go past Rauru's great effort - as usual Paddy and Lloyd did a lot of hard work in the centre - constantly closing them down. Nick g as well - but no point awarding him any. Any other thoughts?
Stallion has to be Rauru, Pony?
Might need some assistance with the fantasy assist points too - Rauru I'm sure you can provide and have relived those goals many many times in your head.
Cheers for the game lads. Loved it! And especially loved notching a goal, no matter how 'right place right time' it was!
Rauru definitely 3 mvp and stallion. Great display of clinical finishing.
His third - from the wide right, to the bottom left corner was top notch, and the last one was a nice piece of work too, easing it into the right hand side of goal.
I thought Paddy got around the park well, and had at least two assists (corner for Rauru, off post for mine). Plus good scrapping on D. (except for the one time that guy skinned him three times and he went to ankle tap him!)
And Butcher with a top notch performance at the back. He is a different player to what I remember. Who brought such discipline into his game?!
Unfortunate that we didn't finish with a clean sheet, some brilliant defence from Tangi, including the one off the line.
Yeah, great game all round, boys. Paddy for pony with that attempted ankle tap at the end there. Rauru obvious MVP and Stallion. The rest...hard to separate as everyone played well especially in defence. Spencer and Joe made some good tackles. Mike ensured the strikers had no space to work, midfield tracked back and worked really hard, Rob made some good runs...
Yea I've tried reliving the goals but I never tend to remember them. They are all a bit of a blur (there are just so many it's hard to keep up ;)). If any of them are goal of the season candidates it'd only be the last one (Goodall got the order of the goals mixed up) but I still rate Dan's header and Panda's chip vs Lower Hutt as better. I have to say that I was pretty happy with them though and they were better than any of the others I've had this season (which aren't that many!).
It was a bloody good team performance though boys, probably the best we've had this season. Lower Hutt have gone to the dogs big time and will continue to drop a lot more points. I spoke to one of their players who said their team wasn't that different, so I think that maybe they lost their top goal scorer from early on and maybe one or two other key players and they've just fallen to bits. They were quite simply rubbish. They could have scored a few more I guess but I think half the reason we played so well was that they allowed us to. Still, it's been a while since we put 5 goals on a team and it was definitely a team effort to be able to do it.
The defense was again excellent. Tangihaere organised well and even managed to get forward and attack a bit which is good. Joe and Spencer did well out wide in tough conditions (even if Spencer mistakenly put on his ice skates rather than his boots in the first half) with some good tracking and making any crosses they put in difficult for them, and yep, Mike had a bloody good game in the middle as well with some good tackles.
The midfield is where it was won though I think. Aaron and both Nicks did well to own the sidelines and managed to do really well in the conditions. It makes such a difference when the wide midfielders stay wide and a bit shorter so they can receive the ball and lay off from there. The center mid in Lloyd and Paddy dominated their space and especially later in the first half and the whole of the second half whenever the ball found its way there, there was one of those two to bring it forward.
I thought Rob did well up front and worked bloody hard all game. He played quite deep for a lot of the game and ran at the defense well when given the opportunity. He got into a few goal scoring opportunities too and while he didn't manage to get on the score sheet the fact he had the chances says a lot. As for me, I was lucky enough to finish the chances that got laid on for me. Every one of the goals (penalty excluded) had a great assist - the corner from Paddy for the second, a floated cross that held up in the wind and drifted back towards me (again, pretty sure it was Paddy) for the third, and a nice 1-2 play with Rob for the fourth.
I'd actually give 3 points to Paddy. As well as two assists for me he was bloody unlucky not to get a goal himself in hitting the post (and hence providing an assist for Goodall), and was generally all over the middle of the park. However getting skinned by that guy late in the game and ending up literally lying flat on his stomach in the mud is quite possibly Pony worthy too! Mike and Tangihere did well in the D, Lloyd was solid as always, and Goodall had an awesome return to the Stallions too. Just a real 'fell-good' performance all round!!
It doesn't stop there though. With Lower Hutt being craper than I thought I'm not sure they'll be able to take points off either of the teams above us, so goal difference is going to be the telling factor. We're really going to have to turn it on in the last three games against Raiders (x2) and Stokes Valley.
Very good run in for us though. Marist & Nth Well are playing each other this weekend, so as long as we win we'll jump at least 1 and possibly both. Then Marist will play Lower Hutt twice and Nth Well will play Uni 4th's twice. If we win the next 3 games i can't see how we won't finish 2nd.
Of course this comes back to Stallions breaking our trend of dropping points to bottom placed teams.
No chance of catching Uni 4th's though. Unless they lose to Raiders this weekend (who have worst Attack & D in the comp)
Who let Goodall play? Nah thanx for my 1st Stallion cap Goodall. Is he back 4 good. Let's finish strong lads 9 points up for grabs!! Nth Wgtn can beat Uni 4s so amp it up. Panda
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