Island Bay United AFC

Well, this is not quite what I signed up for when offering to write our match reports. Having to re-live the 90 minutes from Saturday is not exactly fun, but I guess youve got to face up to the bad as well as basking in the good.

The day actually started off alright with Merrick letting me know I was captain for the day in Dave Wiggins absence, but things only got worse as I proceeded to lose the toss and then, within five minutes we were one nil down. A cross from the left wasnt controlled and as the ball fell to the strikers feet, he made no mistake in lashing it home.

Not the start we wanted and on a very boggy Karori no3 pitch, we couldnt get anything going. Karori were muscling up more than us and with not much getting pulled up we seemed to pull out of 50/50 challenges.

It didnt seem long before we were two nil down as one of their strikers got through the defence and slotted a calm finish past the onrushing Adam in goal.

We were at risk of completely dropping our heads but some good fighting lead up work and pressure on their defence led to a well taken goal from Milney. Built up from the right, a mistake led to a Karori defender retrieving the ball from just in front of goal, but as he didnt immediately clear he was dispossessed and the ball fell to Irish Karl who slammed a good shot which could only be parried by the keeper. The ball lobbed back over Karls head and he had great awareness to just lob the return over the keeper which Milney got a deft header on and flicked it into the net.

While there was still plenty to do, you could sense we felt we were back into it.

Karori threatened a few more times, before they nailed a nice set piece goal. Any one of three unmarked Karori players couldve headed home at the far post from a corner and the one that rose the highest made no mistake.

We battled away, but to no avail and went in to half time three one down.

A change to the formation and some stirring words meant we started well, but another lapse proved costly and maybe fifteen minutes in we were down four one after some handy work down their left hand side resulted in a tidy low cross that was turned into the goal.

Maybe it was our resolve, or maybe that they relaxed a bit much, but we dominated the football for the rest of the match. We played with composure and confidence and only lacked a finish on a few occasions.

Karori were only working off the long ball counter attack now and nearing the end we disappointingly conceded a fifth to really put the dagger in. Too much time given outside the box resulted in a well placed shank to the bottom corner.

Not the result I was after in my debut as captain - Dave mate, its all yours!

Nuff said, weve got to move on. Im sure we can all think of plenty excuses, but we just need to work harder as a team to put it all together. An outdoor training this week would be nice so heres hoping the weather holds out for us, and the council play ball.

Return match against Wellington United (sitting second) this week, and while things arent quite desperate yet, we could do with the three points.
See you all at Wakefield for the early kick off (12:30pm), before the firsts take on Tawa.

Nick

Labels: away, capital 1, karori, loss