Waterside Karori Thirds 2 Douglas Villa 2
Poor discipline probably cost Tumu Douglas Villa three points for a win in their Capital Division Two clash with Waterside-Karori Thirds at Karori Park on Saturday.
The team played most of the game with 10 players after Tremaine Rimene-Albrett was sent off after 15 minutes for dissent, and finished with nine players after Kurtis Paine was shown a second yellow card in the dying stages.
Villa coach Mark Taylor said it was a difficult games and the remaining players responded brilliantly with the challenges they faced on the field.
“It was a really good effort to get a point when it really should have been an easy three points if we had 11 functioning players on the pitch,” Taylor said
“Our players have got to learn discipline because it’s going to cost us, and it’s obviously something we’ve got to tighten up on.”
Villa fell behind in the first five minutes when the defence failed to clear a ball that was played leaving an easy tap in for the home team.
Although soon down to 10 men, Villa started to to gain a share of possession and created several good chances. The equaliser came after about 30 minutes when Liam Gale broke from inside his half and combined with Paine who put a ball into Josh McMenamin who beat a couple of defenders and curled the ball into the top corner.
Villa continued to keep the home side in check in the second half restricting them to long range shots, and took the lead with about 10 minutes to go when a long ball from a free kick into the penalty box was collected by Chris Cox, who played the perfect ball for Caleb Anstis to finish at the far post.
The lead didn’t last long though as Waterside-Karori scored from the spot after being awarded a dubious penalty after the ball bounced up and hit Chris Cox on the backside and ricocheted on to his hand.
Any chance of victory, however, ended with the sending off of Paine shortly afterwards, leaving Villa to play the final minutes plus eight minutes of time added on with nine players.
Taylor felt that Villa had the players who could score goals and they were reasonably comfortable with 10 players, creating numerous chances they didn’t capitalise.
He said Simon Mazey’s pace caused the home side a lot of problems and Gale was an attacking threat and was unlucky not to have been awarded had a penalty. Mostly though Taylor praised his team’s defensive effort.
“Defensively we were really tight and we did really well, especially in midfield where Andrew Cox and Caleb Anstis were good defensively and when we broke out they were able to give good support.”
Captain Chris Cox and Shea Fowler also impressed in the centre of defense.
Taylor believes the result achieved under difficult circumstances would be good for confidence for the rest of the campaign.
“We’ve played a couple of teams now and we have an idea where we can sit and we have to make sure we focus on the way we play and not worry about the opposition or the referee and we’ve got do better ourselves,” he said.
Villa have their first home game of the season on Saturday against early leaders Horowhenua Coastal.
Greytown 10
Victoria University 2
Greyfriars Motel Greytown continued their remarkable start to the Capital Division Three championship, treating spectators to another goal fest at Soldiers Memorial Park on Saturday.
After scoring eight the week before, Greytown added to that tally with 10 more against Victoria University Reserves, who provided much sterner opposition than first round opponents Naenae.
Assistant coach Josh Stevenson added four more to his tally giving him 10 for the season after just two games, while Jarrod MacDonald got his season underway with a second half hat-trick to underline the potent attacking qualities this side has. Waisake Sabutu, Nik Finlay and Rhys Gwyther also bagged goals.
University proved to be a stronger unit in the first half and that was reflected in the half-time score 3-1.
However, within 70 seconds of the second half kick-off, Finlay’s deflected shot began another procession of goals as the the students just couldn’t cope with the numerous attacking threats all over the park.
MacDonald picked up man of the match honours for his all round performance while the two wide men, Gareth Gwyther and Landon Palmer provided plenty of ammunition for the front pair.
At the back Max Mitchell and Sabutu provided a solid central pairing with Liam Andrew again defying his 16 years of age by stopping pretty much everything coming down his wing.
Coach Phil Keinzley made special mention after the game of the impact provided by second-half substitute William Newton, who hassled the visiting defence into giving up the ball a number of times and had a key involvement in at least a couple of Greytown’s goals.
Greytown travel over the hill for their first away game of the season on Saturday with a visit to Kelburn Park to play the Victoria University Accies, who are also unbeaten after their first two games of the competition.
