Island Bay United AFC

Capital 1 vs. Karori Dreamers - 3 April - L 1-3
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Capital 1 vs. North Wellington - 5 April - L 0-3

First game up for the season and as is fairly common for a reserves team we looked a fair bit different from the year before. Being Easter weekend didn't help either, but we had worked hard pre-season and were happy for the season to be underway.

We were up against a Karori Dreamers side who we know are quality (finishing 3rd in 2009) and are a team who should be near the top come the business end of the season.
But that didn't daunt us, and we started strongly, on a typically wind-swept Wakefield no1 whose rock hard cricket blocks posed quite a hazard.

We created chances-a-plenty and probably should've been in the lead, after some nice work down the wings from Oli and Fred resulting in dangerous crosses in to the area. Some dazzling footwork from Andy and Ronald in particular had Karori lads in trouble in the middle. The finishing touch wasn't quite there but we continued to push, and held on to the ball well.

Unfortunately 10 seconds of disorganisation cost us, as the Dreamers tidily converted from a corner. And even more unfortunately it wasn't long till we were two down after a very unlucky own goal.

Still, we knew we weren't out of it, and that was exactly the message at half time.

And when Ryan nodded a cross from young Sam into the back of the net we knew we were a chance to get a well earned draw if not kick on for a win. We became more attacking, through substitutions and endeavour, as the Dreamers scrambled for their life, but we just couldn't find that clinical finish.

Then, in the last 30 seconds, another long ball from the Dreamers was latched onto and after the initial blocked shot came back off the post, the ball wasn't cleared properly and their striker calmly squared the ball to an unmarked team mate to easily side foot home.

It was great to see all the support on the sidelines and sorry we couldn't notch a win for you all!

We had competed well though, both physically and tactically, so it was an encouraging start to the season. . .

But that made it all the more disappointing on Monday when we really never 'turned up' against North Wellington's (NW) first team.

Again we had quite a few changes and just couldn't seem to gel. On what was a beautiful day for football in J'ville, NW were putting us under pressure and dominated the game. They were probably unlucky to not be in the lead at half time after a lot of last ditch saves, including at least two off the line by man of the match Karl. But that was fine by us and while we were frustrated at things not going our way, so was NW as they couldn't find the goal they probably deserved and we went in to half time at nil-nil.

We continued to battle away but around 60 minutes after a wayward pass, ex-shark Kevin Provis pinched it on half way and ran 30 meters before calmly chipping Russ in goal.

We still tried in vain to get into the game and started to play with the ball a bit more, but NW had their tails up and were harassing well. We showed some gritty defence, but NW's domination of possession and field position told when a couple of defensive lapses cost us a couple more goals. Working on our support play and improving our vision to enable quicker ball movement are two key lessons from Monday.

It was certainly not the opening weekend we were hoping for but it's very early days and with the keen young squad we've got lots of energy and motivation to change things around. You could sense the will to learn from the weekend's experiences in the attitude and intensity at training on Tuesday so bring on Saturday and Olympic. . .
Shark Attack!

Labels: away, capital 1, easter, home, karori, loss, north wellington