Shooting practice required

The Senior Men’s 3rd team got their season off to a winning start but will be reflecting on a host of missed chances. Quickly out of the blocks there was complete territorial and procession dominance which saw the inevitable opening goal fall to George Miller, making it 2 from 2 since his return to the club.

In the early stages Manurewa barely moved into the Pukekohe half and when they did the back 4 looked very assured with Matt Hull making a guest appearance, hopefully his back is not too sore today.

Chris Britnall and Jon Waller combined well several times and plenty of service was going into the box. Once again Puke seemed to be intent on trying to walk the ball into the net rather than taking the shooting opportunities that were being presented, although judging by the standard of shooting in the second half I now understand why. These 2 combined once more for a move that saw Chris race clear into the box, only to be brought down from behind. Jon Waller took the spot kick and whilst his initial shot was blocked, he kept his nerve to dispatch the rebound to put Puke 2 nil ahead. At this point it looked like a cricket score was looming, and in reality I think the whole team started to unwisely believe that.

I must extend a big thank you to 3 U17 players Liam McDonald, Jack Crane and David Acton for coming over and sitting on the bench for us and more importantly their parents for bringing them. David found himself on the pitch before half time and certainly found himself involved, getting in a couple of great crosses and showing some nice touches.

We got to the break 2 up, and the half time team talk was pretty straight forward, take a shot when you get the chance, talk more (how many times does that get mentioned?) and guard against complacency, after all if they pulled one back the game could change completely.

Those turned out to be prophetic words as Puke created chance after chance all of which went begging, until Manurewa broke away and 2 ricochets later the ball broke to their grateful striker who put it away. To say we were stunned is an understatement. Jack and Liam were both introduced and both played exceptionally well, lots of confidence and no little amount of skill.

During this period Pukekohe seemed to get increasingly nervous as it appeared that it could be ‘one of those days’ where one false move could see us get a draw rather than a win the should have been secured several times over. The frustration seemed to start to boil over with a few feisty challenges snapping in and a bit of arguing amongst ourselves, a sight which must have amazed the opposition given our total dominance.

Puke continued to control the play and had literally dozens of shots without the Manurewa keeper having to make a single save. Finally a cross came over from the right and Liam guided a well placed header just inside the upright from the edge of the area. That saw the end of the scoring and a 3-1 away win to start the season.

In reality we did not play as well as the previous week against opposition that were not as strong, however, the important thing was that the result was achieved and we can move on. In total 9, 3rd and 4th team squad players were missing and many will be back next week and so no doubt there will be changes for the trip to Bay Olympic.

Player of the day was Jack Crane, well done.