University Stallions continued their good form from previous weeks to claim all 3 points in a game that saw 3 yellow cards issued to the Wgtn elite side.
Weather had been abysmal all week so it was great too see Saturday dawn fine and reasonably warm,Capital football was forced to cancel 10 grades so it was a relief to see we were still playing as scheduled with no ground transfer.
The cancellations meant we were lucky enough to get an official ref for the game, something Wgtn elite didn't deal with to well.
The ground wasn't too bad although the middle of the park where the cricket wickets had been was complete shite, the end of the game it resembled a muddy pig pen.
Elite kicked off, it took a while to feel each other out but after some attacking forays from elite, we started to move the ball around a bit and began too put pressure on them ourselves.
We got a few corner kicks that were well delivered but were equally well challenged from the elite defence who cleared their lines well.
1st goal,
With the defence holding out the Elite attack with relative ease, the forwards were beginning to get more ball to feet and were trying really hard to take on the elite defence.
Rauru was given a nice ball about 25 or so metres out from Tristin and turned two defenders inside out leaving himself with space just to the left outside the 18yard box and with his left foot curled a beautiful ball into the back of the net past a diving keeper who had no show in stopping that
1-0 20 or so minutes gone.
The rest of the half was i feel dominated by U.S ,the defence was solid all game and made the elite side really work hard to create the little opportunities they had,the midfield playing a key role in holding onto the ball and offering themselves as options to let the forwards get up a bit more so it was good to go into the half with a lead.
Halftime
The halftime talk was positive we all felt we were the better of the two sides the 50/50 balls were going our way, but it was important to start the 2nd half well, after last weeks capitulation we needed to start the stronger of the two sides.
2nd half
And the stronger of the two we were, we went out and attacked elite right from the off and made good inroads into their defensive 3rd gaining a few early corners too, really put their defence under pressure and limiting their attacks.
A few of the Elite players began to get frustrated and when some decisions went against them they blew up at the ref who does what ref's do in those situations he carded them 3 in all 2 in the game and one at the end when an elite player remonstrated about the refs performance.
Their goal
We'd been on the attack for a bit and it was elites turn to put some pressure on U.S.
Taking U.S on through the middle elite managed to worm their way through the midfield and into the back of our defenders and a really nice shot was taken from an elite player about 9 yards out on the right hand side and we found ourselves all level
1-1 55minutes.
Knowing we'd been sucker punched the Stallions began to play with a bit more heart and desire (not that we hadn't been already)really putting in the extra effort to regain what should be a rightful lead, piling on pressure and snuffing out elites attacks before they became dangerous.
it would have to rate as one of the best performances of the season so far from the team really digging deep in all areas.
We were given a couple of free kicks, one was taken 35 yards out on the right quickly by Tristin who crossed it too Spencer on the left hand goal post and he was terribly unlucky not to put U.S in the lead the header just going wide.
our 2nd goal,
We managed to stop an attack from elite and went on the counter, the ball made it's way up the field through some nice passing and slap happy defending,the Elite defence tried to play Hodges offside on the left hand 6yard box but he beat it and got a shot off that went right into the back off the net, giving U.S the lead and Wgtn Elite a mountain to climb. 2-1 75minutes gone
By now Elite were throwing everything at U.S but we remained solid throughout the rest of the game the whole team doing it's bit to hold elite out, the game would ebb and flow both ways until the ref called time and the University Stallions claimed a deserved win.
Stallions: Ben Brooks,Graham,Corey,Jason,Mike,Joe,Aaron,Ben Hodges,Spencer,Rauru,Tristin
Subs: Tangi,Panda
Goals Rauru 20mins,Ben Hodges 75mins