Rauru - I kneed your balls...

Attention this is your pony speaking - no Not Paul or Logan despite your honourable attempts it is me, Paddy. My pony worthy sins I hear you ask?
1) Being nutsed by a throw in
2) Appealing (successfully) for a penalty when the ball was (apparently) at my feet
3) Kneeing the skipper in the nuts in a "self conscious, piss poor, white boy attempt for a high 5" - in fact I was attempting to jump into Rauru's arms but there was no way he was having that!

Any way onto the match report...

Cap Soccer in their infinite wisdom transferred us to Nairnville 2 at 2.30pm to play Lower Hutt Sangham. Excellent we thought - a home game on a pitch which would only have had one game on it - wrong! Cap Soccer has obviously decided to fuck Nairnville for the season nice and early, mission accomplshed for N1, and not too far away for N2.

The game kicked off 15 mins late in a good old Ngaio pea souper. The Stallions had the bare 11 due to a late pull out, Corey replaced in the starting line up by Dan's mate Jason. The Stallions started strongly, creating a few half chances - most of which I put at least 5m wide. Everyone in the Stallions had noticeably increased their efforts from last weekend, D muscled up nicely and the attacking players attempted to knock the ball around.

Sangham had fired some warning shots throughput the first 30 mins - most comfortably dealt with by Paul resplendent in his new white and gold dinner plate sized gloves. However on about 30 mins a Sangham midfielder out in a speculative cross which drifted towards the goal and over Paul's despairing attempt to push it over the bar. 1-0 Sangham.

The Stallions redoubled our efforts and were unlucky not to equalise when Jason smashed in a shot which was deflected to Tristin who hit the rebound against the bar. Within a couple of mins Robin also rattled the woodwork with a sensational 25 yard dipping volley - the ball just would not go in. Just before oranges the Stallions' situation worsened when Joe making a great covering run pulled up with a hammy tear - 1-0 down and down to 10 men at half time, things were looking grim.

At half time the gaffer shuffled the pack with Jason moving to left half, G replacing Joe at right back and Tristin being left up front by himself. Despite our numerical disadvantage the Stallions played some lovely stuff early in the half again being unlucky not to score. This reached its height when Logan was denied from 3 feet by a magnificent recovery from the Sangham 'keeper. Shortly after this the Stallions should have been 2-0 down. A long clearance flew over Tangi's head on the halfway line, he turned and slipped allowing the Sangham striker a clear run from 40 yards. Paul raced to the edge of the box and fully atoned for the first goal by pulling off a double or maybe even triple save from the bewildered striker.

Duly fortified it wasn't long before the Stallions were on level terms. A throw in from Dan found it's way to me in the box, I beat one man only to have the covering defender make a slide tackle with his hand - cue high pitched hysterical appeal pen appeal from me, apparently completely ignoring the ball. The ref duly pointed to the spot and skipper Rauru stepped up to roll a perfect pen just inside the left hand post. 1-1.

You're never more at risk than when you've just scored and so it proved for the Stallions. Although we manager to defend a very dodgy freekick, a couple of mins later their striker turned Tangi in the box, was clipped, went down, and a pen was awarded to them. Their gargantuan midfielder lined up and smashed it to Paul's right giving him no chance. 2-1 Sangham about 15 to go.

Five mins later and it could have been game over. Sangham cut into the box and Rauru (who by now had slotted into centre back) came across. The ball went past rauru, but the player didn't (mainly due to him picking bone splinters out of his upper and lower legs). A more nailed on pen you will never see, however the Sangham ref having felt the wrath of the Stallions on a few recent occasions waved play on. Play went up the other end and Jason smashed in a superb shot which the keeper spilled to his right. Logan came rushing in and ignoring the traditional methods for scoring an open goal i.e. kick it / head it, punched it into the net. Goal disallowed - cue some amusing protests from Stallions who had not seen the blatant handball.

Three mins to go and the Stallions go the goal that our sheer number of chances deserved. Another long throw from Dan was flicked on by Robin (?) and fell to the feet of Tristin. He fired in a decent shot which the keeper saved but the ball broke to me about 3 feet out completely unmarked. My attempted punch missed, however the ball was fortunately bundled in by my left foot. 2-2. In a self congratulatory haze I ran towards Rauru attempting to leap into his arms and only managed to knee him in the nads.

The final couple of mins were played out with no real incident that I can recall and we had secured a deserved point - well played Stallions.

Strong performances across the park but I am advised that the post match awards went something like this.
Pony - me
Stallion - Paul, for his double/triple match saving save.
3MVP points - Robin, unlucky not to score, great all round game
2MVP points - me
1 MVP point - Danno.

Well done lads, some other punter can have crack at the fantasy points...