Men's Div 1: No game
Men's Div 3: Sprig & Fern Tahuna 2nd XI v FC Nelson 3rds
Men's Div 4: Sprig & Fern Tahuna 3rd XI v Mapua FC Mens
Men's Div 5: Sprig & Fern Tahuna 4th XI v Helen Ruston Richmond Stags
Women's Div: Sprig & Fern Tahuna Breakers v Nelson Suburbs FC Swans
Photos (as noted) by Ab's Snaps. For more match-day pics join the Facebook Group. To purchase photos or request your own photos at the next game contact Abbi Robinson.
2nd XI 6-0 FC Nelson 3rds
Location: Tahuna Reserve
Goals: Duane Valentine (3), Neil Geeza Harding, Jamie Floyd, Eric 'the seal' Louis
Match MVP: Duane Valentine
After all the overnight rain, the boys didn't know if football was going ahead, but Beach Rd fields were in surprisingly good condition. The game v FC Nelson arch enemy was the scheduled fixture. Game started late due to no ref, but Kev Cooper stepped up again (legend) to put a dodgy-sounding whistle in his mouth. FC started the more brighter, but after 20 mins Tahuna got into rhythm, with some good passing and movement off ball. Paddy got in with a one on one but keeper got down well. Then the fireworks started. First Duane with a misconstrued shot from the edge of the 18-yard box going in via woodwork, then Geeza with a composed finish from distance. Duane netted his second shortly after, before Eric smuggled home from a corner, and a delightful finish from Jamie all in the space of 15 mins. To be honest, it could have been more, but Kev paused his Strava for a moment to send us in for drinks 5-0 up. Everyone playing their part well.
The second half we offloaded our star bench, but FC Nelson scrambled well, despite a bit of niggly stuff. Eric was in the perfect place to slide into a blonde-haired 16-year-old, helping him find out what senior men's football was all about. Midway through the second half Duane completed his hat trick and quelled any hopes of a comeback for FC.
Final score 6-0. Credit to the defence and the goalkeeper for a clean sheet. My (Duane) MOM was Ed who played well at CB despite it not being in his usual position. Gives us options moving forward. To be honest, everyone played well. Thanks Sam for sorting the bench and Geeza, as usual, racking up the fines for curry night next week. Up Up.
MVP: Duane Valentine
Dick of the Day: Apparently Geeza by a hair, for his elaborate Jurgen Klinsmann dive after he scored but only managing to slide half a metre. Thanks to Josh, Fred and Gary for helping out too.
Match report by Duane Valentine
3rd XI 1-7 Mapua
Location: Mapua Domain
Goals: Sayha Men
Match MVP: Matt Wakeford
This is a bit like pulling a glass splinter out of -------- (think of a painful place).
We were not at the races, we never got started, and more or less got choked from the kick off.
What they did better than us:
They pressed hard and pressed from their forwards, making it very difficult to play out from the back. The knock-on effect of this was we couldn't get the midfield started because it was always a rushed pass or just a clearance up the field. They held their shape better than us and made quick first time passes while their guys were in space. They supported each other better than we did by guys running to the guy with the ball to receive a pass. They were crowding out our guys when we got the ball and they were way more energetic. Most of their goals came from shots from outside the 18-yard box because we stood off them.
Very bad day at the office, they did to us what we did to the team 2 weeks ago.
So we have plenty to work on and a couple of weeks to work on it.
We are still top of the league, but only by 1 point and we have a bye next week, so will probably drop a place or 2. The league is pretty tight, so I'm hoping for a Bogans and Mapua win next week then we're all square with games, only 1 point behind Mapua, and we still have a catch up game with Wakefield......so it's all still in our hands.....win every game from here and we're home. But only if we put in the work and put it into practice on game day.
Here's where Col upsets his team:
I think one of the things that did sink us was holding too high a line. Yes, this did to a certain degree stop them getting brakes on us with over the top balls. But on the other hand, it compressed the play into a 10m corridor which didn't give us enough room to play in and kept us a lot closer to them to break up our play. On the flip side, when their forwards pressed our back line we could have supported our back line better and gave them easier options to play out. Our passing was pretty shabby and without that, the rest was pretty shabby.
Can't fault anyone for not giving it everything physically., but mentally we weren't at our best - our coms were pretty shabby because that requires listening. This week it wasn't clear who should be doing the talking (we usually nominate 2 people and the rest listen)......and being 3-1 down at half time generally isn't a problem.
Anyway, BoooHooo we got our arse handed to us on a plate. Let's not forget that feeling of licking piss off a nettle whilst sucking a wasp, and use that to strengthen our resolve to make sure that doesn't happen again.
I think I'm surrounded by a quality squad, so let's get back on our horse and bring it home, win by win.
Goal Sayha
Assist Pedro.
Training Wednesday, see you there for the de-brief.
Match report by Colin
4th XI 0-7 Richmond Stags
Location: Jubilee Park
Match MVP: Daniel Hall
The 4ths visited the leagues top team, hoping for an improved performance from last week, and the message before the game was all about personal pride and fighting spirit. Despite the score line it's fair to say that is what we got. This was not a 7-0 thumping as the result might indicate.
The team battled well in the first half, once again playing some nice football at times but being unable to maintain momentum and it took almost half an hour for The Stags to go ahead when they created a breakaway. A second soon followed and we went in 2-0 down at the break. We went close to scoring first when Alistair attempted an audacious lob from well outside the box, only to see it slip past the post.
Although conceding five in the second half, a couple of which were worldies, we continued to battle and no one gave up, which was an improvement on recent weeks. If we are to be fair there are three teams in this League which we are going to struggle to compete with and three teams which we should compete with and our aim is to win these games and finish top of that mini league.
That starts this weekend with the visit of FC Nelson, who we beat in the first round and our first game of the season on the main pitch at Tahuna. Our aim is now to win at least four games out of the last five, to secure fourth spot in the League, which would be a big improvement on last season. It is not beyond us and we just need to have more belief in ourselves.
MOM - Daniel Hall (again) 🙂 Mind you he's been seeing plenty of the ball.
Up Up Tahuna.
Match report by Pete.
Breakers 0-5 Swans
Location: Tahuna Reserve
Match MVP: Sophie Mathews
I get knocked down, but I get up again...
I get up again...
Down.
Up... agaaaaain.
Uggggghhhhhh.
breathe You are never gonna keep me down oooooh!
A few Breakers might have to adopt this as their new mantra, considering the amount of time we spent on the floor during our literal "clash" vs the Swans. Pumped to have our first home game of the season, and most of our team available for the match, we planned for a strategic "goal reducing" and defence-heavy lineup. However, we really didn't get to use it as we seemed to be holding our own for the first 15 minutes at least, and spent a lot of time on the attack. The Swans probably weren't used to not scoring so quickly, so started to play rougher and faster sending a couple of shots towards our goal. One attempt, a "slide-tackle-kick" manoeuvre by a Swan landed squarely on the fingers of Bob who'd come out to save the ball. Some simple math for us all: foot + finger = fracture. Two goals came in quick succession around about 30 minutes, and we went to halftime 2 - 0 to the Swans. Overall a great first half playing a passing game and majority possession, we just couldn't pull off many shots despite some good runs.
The second half got even rougher, with Sophie ending up on the ground possibly more times than Bob, and Anita bruising some ribs and almost having to be dragged from the field. We had plenty more good runs and some entertaining moments watching both Sophie and Meagan skin several players at a time on a couple of occasions. Bob, feeling like a literal punching bag by now, had been stood on, balls kicked at her face, and fallen/dove hard too many times - so tried to catch a long shot with her mouth and ended up with a bloody smile. With just half a brain cell left, she just about qualifies to become a rugby player now.
A further 3 goals in the 2nd half and another saga of the Broken Breakers came to a close. End result, a toughly fought 5 - 0 loss to the top of the table Swans, who last year had double digits on us. Words of wisdom from coach Court "We'll beat 'em next time".
Player of the day went to Sophie for her grit, determination, unflagging attempts to get at the ball no matter where she is (standing or lying down), and skill in the midfield.
Tit of the day went to Michelle who nailed her first header, but it must've knocked a bit off her height because there were several phantom headers from then on. Great jumping though!
Cheers to Jesse for reffing, and a decent sized support crew on the sideline!
See you in the outfield next week, beaches!
Match report by Bob