Island Bay United AFC

Up 1-0 within 2 minutes, only to be 2-1 down at half-time and absolutely thrashed 8-3 at the end of 90 minutes by a waterside team desperate to stay up, and who's commitment to that task, coupled with some great touches constantly overpowered our midfield and defense and led to some great goals (for them).

It was a sad way to farewell Petero from NZ football in '08, but the coaches, club and particularly the players who played alongside him, wish him all the best for the future and feel privileged to have been able to play alongside him during his short time here.

We hope that the few people who made Petero's life in NZ extremely difficult do not linger in his memory too long and are quickly replaced with all the good reasons why the rest of us stay in the country and also play our football in NZ: good friends, good living standards, and a guaranteed right to be kept free from persecution, entrapment and extortion.

On Saturday we play Upper Hutt in our last home game of the season, where we'll look to get some dignity back and make up for our last HORRIBLE performance.

Go Sharks!

Labels: away, karori, lost, notices, premier

Another home game on the weekend required another victory for the Premier side as we attempt to climb to the top of the ladder. Karori were joint top of the table, hadn't lost yet in 2008, and have a game in hand aswell, so it was a good time to let our intentions for this season be known. The squad was overflowing with confidence after beating Tawa, and Upper Hutt (Chatham Cup) in previous weeks, and were looking forward to keeping to our winning ways.

We started well in the windy, wet conditions, although perhaps not so great at the back, with a few tense moments as we failed to deal properly with Karori's long floating balls over the back of our defense. Once we'd sorted these out, it was all Island Bay, with Karori's midfield being swamped by Nate, Steve and Petero. Hicham was back from injury, and carving trenches around the Wharfie's defense, taking 20 minutes before scoring a well earned goal, even if it did take a deflection on the way.

We continued to dominate, Karori relying on counter-attacking whenever they could break out of their half. Five minutes before half-time another attack resulted in a corner. Ian fired in a near post cross, which Zac rose up to and rocketed the ball towards goal. The defender on the near post could only head the ball into the top of the net, making it 2-0, and surely requiring a couple of panadol.

Different game, same old Wakefield Park half-time talk. "Third goal will kill 'em off gentlemen!" Karori would have been given a slightly different speech I'm sure, and both teams came out of the dressing rooms fired up.

Karori changed formation to 3-4-3 in an attempt to peg one back and make a game of it, but within 5 minutes Steve Davey had decided the third goal wasn't happening fast enough, so drove one into the top left hand corner from 25 yards, leaving us all gob-smacked, including the stranded Wharfie's keeper.

Karori kept searching for a way back in, and looked to have found one when they were awarded a penalty. Fortunately Shaan gave us some more penalty magic, not only saving the initial kick, but also dealing with the rebound. Karori would score ten minutes later though, bending a freekick around the outside of the wall and in off the post with precision. It was all too little too late though, The Bay has now won all four home games and is sitting in second place, only two points adrift of Tawa.

Interestingly, after SEVEN games, there is only SEVEN points separating the top SEVEN teams. This weekend Tawa face Karori, while we play Upper Hutt, away at Harcourt Park [that'll be twice in two weeks] on Saturday, with a Chatham Cup tie against last years beaten Cup finalists, and Central League Winners, Western Suburbs.

Waterside Karori's Match Report

Go Sharks!

Labels: home, karori, premier, won