Island Bay United AFC

Apologies for not getting this report out sooner, but it was difficult to get the events of Saturdays game clear.

It was a beautiful day at Weka Park and the ground was also perfect. Something we definitely aren't used to enjoying.

It's fair to say that we began the game in dis-array. Our midfield was pushing up too high too often, and the bounce of the ball wasn't going our way, allowing them to pick up loose balls in the vacant gaps and pressure our defense.

We got a penalty, somehow, and as normal Richard Steel made no mistake. Minutes later a foul by us led to a freekick, which was taken in a new style, on the bounce. A perfect ball out wide gave their winger some time to line up, and beat, his man. As our defense scrambled to cover, the guy delivered a pin point pass to an unmarked attacker, calmly slotting the ball past our keeper to square the game up.

Much frivality and laughter ensued for the rest of the half, with numerous fouls, insults and curious decisions keeping both teams intrigued.

The second half carried on in much the same vein, until a superb cross was met by Steve Davey, who controlled the ball AND beat his player with his first touch, before slotting the ball into the corner of the goal, giving us the go ahead goal.

Kapiti were in no mood to lose points, and fought tooth and nail to get back into the game, while we pushed to kill the game off with a third goal.

Scott was sent off after a mistimed header hit a Kapiti player instead, so we played on with ten men. Minutes later, when their tall timber at the back elbowed Jamie Milne's nose open, we were reduced to nine.

Thankfully, before we ran out of players, David Rutherford had heroically headed the ball over their keeper and into the corner of the goal, after just getting back onto his feet from a prior horrendous challenge aimed at his head.

Eventually, time ran out and we had won, but it was not a pretty match, nor was it an example of how we want to play. Kudos to all of our players for sticking to their tasks for the whole 90 minutes, even though it wasn't panning out according to plan.

Another 3 points puts more pressure on the top teams, and hopefully we'll win this weeks home game against Upper Hutt, widening the gap between us and some other teams.

Shark Attack!

Labels: away, kapiti, premier, won