Mens 4th Team v Bay Olympic

This weekend saw us at home to Bay Olympic Konini and aiming to rack up our first points of the season.  Back up to full strength this week, and with the addition to the squad of Andrew Bond and young goalkeeper Michael Hovmoller, there was every reason to feel optimistic.  Nevertheless we would be up against strong opposition against a team coming into the game on the back of three successive wins and having conceded only one goal in the process ...

The game started well and although the Puke defence was forced to deal with a number of attacks from the opposition we were able to make plenty of our own chances.  Having said that, beating the Bay Olympic keeper was never going to be an easy task as the guy was that physically imposing he would have made Steve Fabs look like a 10 year old!  During the first half the game looked like it could have gone either way, but two incidents of bad luck would see us on the backfoot for the remainder of the game.  The first of these was the unfortunate knee injury to goalkeeper Mike as the result of a 50-50 challenge which saw him ruled out of the game with only 20 minutes or so played.  This meant putting defender Marty Bennett into goal, taking away his experience in our back line.  A double blow for us as the injury effectively removed the influence of two key players.  The second run of bad luck saw a Puke goal disallowed after the ref blew for an earlier foul and the resultant free kick saw Pete Wild put a ball just over the bar.  Half-time score 0-0 and no reason to be displeased with our performance so far.

Unfortunately for Puke two early goals (both conceded from corners) in the second half saw us put in a fairly deflated performance for the remainder of the game.  We did continue to put some pressure on the opposition defence and a free-kick from Bondy sailed just over the bar, but to be honest we didn’t really look like getting back into the game against a well organised Bay Olympic side.  The third and fourth goals conceded were a bit of a disappointment as they came not as the result of good attacking football from the opposition, but rather our own inability to challenge for the ball or to close them down quickly enough.  4-0 to Bay Olympic at full-time and to be brutally honest they did deserve all three points out this game.

Player of the day this week goes to Matt Stewart, a solid performance at right-back following an impromptu defensive reorganisation as a result of Mike’s injury.  A few other mentions ... Marty Bennett, again for donning the keeper’s gloves; Donald, consistent as usual at left-back; Shane and Jason, hard-working and never give up attitude all game; Bondy, a welcome addition providing invaluable experience to the squad (despite his relative youth).  To everyone else, just keeping plugging away and the results will come.  Special thanks to referee Jim Hey, once again helping us out at very short notice.

Nobody need be too down-hearted this week.  Although we didn’t really perform at the level that we have been during the second half against Bay Olympic, we were still up against strong opposition and may well have had a different result if it wasn’t for Mike’s injury.  Bottom-line is we’ve lost six out of six now, but three of those six could just as easily have gone in our favour.  So heads up lads, we’ll be in for a tough game against Western Springs next week and need to put in our all for that one.  Following that we have games against Drury, Ellerslie ATSC and derby rivals Waiuku – these are all teams that we should realistically be looking to take points off.

Here’s looking forward to next week!

Team: Michael Hovmoller, Julian Smith, Martin Bennett, Pete Wild (capt), Donald Fleming, Matt Stewart, Ezra Leffalaar, Shane Harneiss, Jason Harneiss, Sven Ludert, Craig Upson, Andrew Bond, Dave Wadeley, Cameron Williams

Goalscorers:

Final Score: Pukekohe 0 - Bay Olympic 4

Next Fixture: Away v Western Springs, Saturday 16th May (kick off 1pm, Walker Park)