Capital One : Wellington United v Lower Hutt City

Result: 1-2 (win)

M.O.M.  Danny Moriarty

Goal Scorers:  Danny Moriarty, Declan Tredrea 

Last game we had a loss to North Wellington 3-1, a game we should have won but were outplayed by a team who reveled in atrocious conditions. So this game was a "must win" as a loss would most certainly end any chance of promotion.

We started well with plenty of possession and lots of attacks but without any end product. Wellington United were good at defending their goal and hitting us on the counter attack with long balls into our flanks and turning us around.  They had a couple of speedy wingers which gave our fullbacks a lot of trouble. Luke Bradshaw and Mike Garnett however dealt well with these threats well, backed up with good goalkeeping from Scott Dunn. It took about half an hour to get our first goal, from a well directed corner from Johnny Gerondis and a near post run by Danny Moriarty, who finished with a well placed header; 1-0. That’s how the half ended.

We spoke about keeping it tight at the back, do what Wellington had done to us, and get the ball into their defensive flanks as Newtown Park is quite a wide park; use our speedy wide guys ,Martin Pereyra and Matt Whitburn. This proved to be working well for us but Wellington defended well most of our attacks. Wellington equalized twenty minutes into the second half when we gave away a silly foul just outside our box out wide.  From the cross we were caught ball watching and a free header by them went in at the far post 1-1. We had to make a couple of changes due to players having to leave for Central League team duty, Kade Schrijvers and Andrew Coad both had good games. We brought on Nathan Cunliffe and Declan Tredea.  Normally we would slot Declan straight into left fullback position but on the showing of our previous game when Declan scored a good goal and got into a few other scoring opportunities, we decided to play him up front alongside Tiago Baltar. It proved to be a good move as with 10 minutes to go from an attack down their right flank, the ball was played into Johnny Gerondis in front of goal who commited their keeper to him before unselfishly slipping the ball to Declan to tuck away the winner. He also had a couple of other scoring chances but their keeper saved them well. A couple of defensive blunders late in the game gave them chances of one on one with our goalie Scott Dunn, who saved them well and kept us in the game. A good win against the team who were sitting in second place before start of play and this gives a wee bit of hope to keep playing hard to get that chance of promotion with six games remaining.

Man of the Match went to Danny Moriarty who had a great game, covered a lot of ground, defended well, set up a lot of attacks and scored a great goal. Other notables were Scott Dunn for pulling off a couple of important saves to keep us in the game and Matt Whitburn for his energy up and down our left flank.

Next game:

Lower Hutt City v Karori Dreamers

Sunday, 11 July 2010

Bell Park, 2pm k/o