The Premmy Files: Round 16 (Part 1)
Canterbury United are putting a hefty challenge together this season. Five wins in a row now and it’d be silly to write them off in two weeks’ time when they welcome the capital folkers and face Team Wellington. Tell you what, that’ll be one of the most massive games of the season. It might even have bigger ramifications than the semi-finals, you know.
That’s because as Auckland City and Team Wellington kicked off their OFC Champions League campaigns this weekend, Canterbury Utd just made a big leap towards being there next time by beating Hawke’s Bay 2-1. Puts them just one point shy of Team Wellington with two games left and a clash with the Tee Dubs coming up in the next proper round (there’s only one game next week: Eastern Suburbs vs Waitakere), very much in range. And if the same team that finishes first also wins the grand final then the second OFC Champs Lge spot goes to the runner up on the ladder, not the beaten finalist.
On the one hand, Canterbury have lost all three times to Auckland City and Team Wellington so far this season with one goal scored and seven conceded. On the other hand, they’ve just won five in a row and ten out of 13 since going winless in their first three games. Who wants to underestimate Willy Gerdsen’s team?
It didn’t look like it was gonna be their day for a while there. Hawke’s Bay are famously solid at the back and quick up front, keen on the counter attack, although not quite as much as usual with Graham Craven missing this one (and Birhanu Taye having to play deeper). The Cantabs were able to whip the ball around and control this thing with possession, clearly the better team… except they weren’t taking their chances.
Stephen Hoyle especially, he had a couple great openings which he smacked straight at Mack Waite in goal for HBU. Dan Terris put a volley over the top in the second half as well which made no sense. Some really nice passing moves in the attacking third (most involving Futa Nakamura) but nothing to show for it and their big fella up top was getting more and more frustrated. Let’s be honest, they should’ve been two or three up by the time Sam St. De Croix wandered onto the pitch and scored with his first touch, putting HBU up 1-0.
All goods, it was exactly what the game needed. On a gorgeous Napier afternoon Big Stevie finally found his touch as he smacked one low into the bottom corner after yet another of those slick moves around the box. Then Nakamura got his own deserved goal when he skipped in front of Bill Robertson for a through ball and slid it past Waite for the winner. Hell of a scare in there yet the Dragons got what they needed in the end.
The other game had minimal implications. Hamilton Wanderers long since proved their wooden spoon credentials and even a win over the Welly Nix Ressies probably wouldn’t have changed that. Although it would’ve been nice to win another game, an experience they didn’t have at all in 2017, and with some much improved performances over the course of the season, coupled with the Wee Nix being pretty goddamned atrocious lately, they actually waltzed into this one as favourites.
What fools we were. The Tron Wands instead conceded a 77th minute own goal to lose 2-1 to a Phoenix team that had lost six of seven games while conceding 28 goals in the process. James McGarry scored in the brink of half-time and then Xavier Pratt was the poor bugger who got the decisive touch on the winner with Steffano Riley levelling in between. The result dooms Hamilton to last place regardless of the two games remaining.
Granted, this was a strong Phoenix team. They finally welcomed back James McGarry while Liberato Cacace also returned to the kids after three weeks with the A-League side. Chuck in Alex Rufer, Adam Parkhouse and Logan Rogerson (who’s been in some decent form) and this is about as good a team as they could throw out there these days. Then again, they wouldn’t have beaten many other teams. Also pour one out for Ollie Sail who hasn’t started a game for the Wee Nix for over a month after slipping to fourth in the club pecking order with Tando Velaphi’s signing. You’d have figured he’d play this one with the other three occupied… only for Zac Jones to get the pick for his first appearance of the season.
Over in the OFC stuff (at Trust’s Arena in Waitakere), Auckland City wasted zero seconds in taking control of their group as they blitzed to a 7-0 win over Tahiti side AS Venus. Yeah, 7-0… meh that’s only one more than they put past Hamilton early in the season. Another game without conceding too (not that they were ever under much threat). Emiliano Tade remembered where he put his goal-scoring boots with a hatty and Reid Drake, Micah Lea’alafa, Callum McCowatt and Dalton Wilkins got the others.
Wilkins is a new name, another of Ole Academy’s lads. He came off the bench for his first competitive appearance for City, having not yet played in the Premiership. Guys like him are the beneficiaries of the stricter rules on foreign players in the OFC CL, rules which also allowed for starts for Cole Peverley and Reid Drake. Enaut Zubikarai, Angel Berlanga and Emiliano Tade were their imports with Micah Lea’alafa a further Oceania player.
City are likely to have another comfortable win over Papua New Guinea’s Madang FC on Wednesday, a win there being enough to make the quarterfinals. Their toughest test will come next Sunday against Lautoka of Fiji. Lautoka are the team that Cory Chettleburgh left Tasman to go play for and they’ve also got his former Tassie teammate Brian Kaltack and OFC legend Benjamin Totori as well as some quality Fijian talent. They beat Madang 3-1 earlier in the day (to be fair to Madang, visa issues meant they had to play an outfielder in goal so they might be better than advertised).
Team Wellington’s quest is much tougher given that they have to play their three group stage games in the Solomon Islands. First up that meant facing host side Marist FC. The Tee Dubs aren’t as reliant on imported talent so they kept a pretty consistent team, the foreigners being Eric Molloy, Mario Barcia and Ross Allen with Roy Kayara from OFC. Hamish Watson started his first game for the Team and he was the only change from last week’s Premmy XI (Andy Bevin left out).
The Wellingtonians prepared for this trip with a training jaunt to the islands late last year but there’s only so much you can do to get used to playing in this heat with 12,000 fans in attendance (so claimed OFC). They had big trouble dealing with the pace of their opponents (who counted Henry Fa’arodo amongst their ranks) and sure enough fell behind to Abraham Iniga’s first half goal. Nobody could keep up with his run from midfield and then he sliced past Justin Gulley and his shot went in off Mario Ilic’s standing foot before he could react.
Welly were better after the break. Jack-Henry Sinclair had a couple good cracks and they were mostly able to keep the hosts to hopeful shots from distance and set pieces. Still it took until the 85th minute for substitute Angus Kilkolly’s left-footed tight-angled volley to get them that precious equaliser. Scott Basalaj still had to make a ripping save afterwards but 1-1 is decent. They’ll take that. They play Samoan side Lupe o le Soaga on Tuesday and then New Caledonia’s AS Magenta on the weekend. Magenta beat Lupe 2-0. First and second place go through to the quarters. You’d figure this was their hardest game.
Hey and how nice is it that OFC can get live streams going and highlight packages up on YouTube within hours? It’s almost like they care about promoting their competition, aye. Even got accurate starting lineups published, live-tweets going for every game… damn. Meanwhile Sky TV, who get paid by NZ Football to promote their competition, can’t get a highlights show up until Tuesday evenings and NZF’s YT goal packages are sporadic at best while the weekly magazine show that Sky does is on hold because they can’t spare the production during the Winter Olympics.
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