Suburbs And Three Kings Flex Their Scoring Muscles
Story by Jeremy Ruane

Eastern Suburbs and Three Kings United scored convincing 5-0 victories over Glenfield Rovers and Claudelands Rovers respectively on April 23, as the Northern Premier Women’s League table starts to take shape.

Topping the table now is Lynn-Avon United, the reigning champions scoring a modest 3-0 win at Hibiscus Coast, where the match official appointed to referee the game didn’t turn up until half-time.

Greg Barker stepped in to oversee a fixture in which Sarah Gregorius and Sam Selwyn scored second half goals for the visitors, after Melissa Ray marked her final match as a 21-year-old by opening the scoring on the half-hour.

Suburbs put to rights a sluggish start to the season by their standards in humbling the previously unbeaten Glenfield at Madills Farm, Melanie Gooch triggering the floodgates with a goal five minutes before the interval.

Lily Somerfield marked her return home from abroad by scoring with a rare headed effort soon after the break, and Natalie Davies made it 3-0 two minutes later to effectively clinch the points for the home team ten minutes after half-time. Just to make sure, Grace Vincent and Marlies Oostdam struck in the final ten minutes to ensure a nap hand for the victors.

The round was an auspicious one for Birkenhead United, last season’s bottom-placed side. This is their third spell in top-flight women’s football in the northern region, after a five-year stint in the Second Division in the 1970s, and a one-off 1997 Premier League campaign which saw them record three wins, including one against the same club they were facing in this match.

Nine years on, and the North Harbour club’s latest crop of youngsters have finally made their mark in top-flight women’s soccer, goals in the last twenty minutes from Stacy O’Brien and Monique Genet clinching a 2-0 victory over Papakura at Shepherds Park.



Three Kings Go Nap Against Nine-Man Rovers

For the second week running, Three Kings United found themselves participating in a match in which one of the combatants concluded the game with nine players on the park.

And while injury meant they were the team to suffer that fate at Western Springs a week ago, two second half flourishes of the red card by referee Nick Waldron reduced incumbent league leaders Claudelands Rovers to nine players by the end of this Keith Hay Park encounter, won convincingly by the home team, 5-0.

It was a sad return to her old stamping ground for Rovers’ ever-competitive New Zealand international Sarah Gibbs, who could do little but look on in frustration as her new club found themselves on the wrong end of a thrashing from a team still missing the services of three of its New Zealand Under-20 internationals.

One player whose on-field presence raised more than the odd eyebrow was Merissa Smith. On Monday, the speedster had her ankle in plaster following the incident which forced her early departure from last week’s match.

But there was no indication of damage found on the various scans and x-rays of her injured joint, and a clearance to play following some physiotherapy treatment saw ’Lazarus’ lining up for this match to cap off a quite remarkable turnaround in events.

After a battling opening spell, with United enjoying the better of possession but finding Gibbs and the hard-working Katie Hoyle in resolute mood, Claudelands were wishing Smith had still been indisposed in the thirteenth minute.

Picked out by Emma Kete, the youngster played a one-two with Betsy Hassett before whipping in a wicked cross which found Zoe Thompson completely unmarked on the far post. With newly-appointed New Zealand women’s coach, Allan Jones, looking on, the international wasted little time in turning home her first goal of the campaign to open the scoring.

Five minutes later, Kete was denied the game’s second goal by the offside flag, while inside the next two minutes, United ‘keeper Jenny Bindon was brought into the action, saving a Helen Collins cross at the feet of the incoming Nicole Stratford.

United’s response was the most enterprising move of the match thus far, in the 22nd minute, an exchange of passes between Abby Erceg, Hassett, Annalie Longo, Smith and Thompson which saw the last-mentioned scamper past an opponent before delivering a deep cross beyond the far post to Roseanne Cox.

With Kete inside her anticipating a delivery low into the goalmouth, the wide midfielder went for glory, and sent her shot in the general direction of the motorway extension work which has claimed a portion of Keith Hay Park’s northern end.

After the tenacious-tacking Hoyle had hoisted a twenty-yarder over the bar, the home team doubled their advantage in the 26th minute. Some splendid work to beat two opponents by Kristy Hill saw the defender play the ball forward to Longo, who instantly found Smith on the right. From twenty-five yards out on the angle, she sent a screamer sailing into the top far corner of the net - 2-0.

As if being behind on the scoreboard wasn’t enough of a setback for the table-toppers, the sight of defensive lynchpin Kimberley Lewis succumbing to an ankle injury on the half-hour didn’t aid their cause, although her replacement, Kate Trebilcock, indicated she wasn’t on the park just to make up the numbers within seconds of coming on, the substitute letting fly from twenty yards following the enterprising play of Holly Nixon.

Bindon watched it clear the crossbar, while two minutes later, her opposite number, Charlotte Wood, was gratefully grabbing an under-struck chip from Cox, who was released by the combined efforts of Longo and Hassett.

Rovers had far from given up on the game, despite the scoreline, and ten minutes before half-time, Kelly Aitken sent Collins charging downfield, the striker having finally got goal-side of United’s captain, Maia Jackman. Despite having three yards to make up on last season’s NPWL Golden Boot winner, the sweeper swept past Rovers’ number nine and executed a perfectly timed sliding clearance in the penalty area.

Soon afterwards, the rain began to fall, not lightly either. Gibbs looked to take advantage of the additional element, and seven minutes from the break, let fly with a full-blooded forty-yard volley which zoomed goalwards and only just cleared the crossbar. With Wood racing off her line to deny Smith moments later, the teams turned round with United two goals to the good.

Three minutes into the second spell, chances were seen at both ends. Bindon raced off her line to thwart Collins’ pursuit of a Nixon through ball, the ‘keeper’s raking clerance turning defence into instant attack. For Kete careered through in pursuit and despite being forced wide, unleashed a shot which flew across Wood and just beyond the far post.

Two minutes later, another chance went begging for Rovers, as Cherie Newman’s header across goal saw Stratford come steaming through to get the better of Bindon, only for no-one in Rovers’ smart new red kit to be on hand to turn the ball home on the far post.

Such profligacy was punished five minutes later, albeit in controversial circumstances. Kete and Vanessa Lambert went at it hammer and tongs as they pursued the ball into the penalty area, where the striker’s attempts to turn it home were matched by the defender’s keenness to clear her lines.

That eagerness was to cost Lambert dearly, for seconds later, referee Waldron was pointing to the penalty spot, then fishing out his red card to dismiss the unfortunate defender, the last one between Kete and the target, the same one into which Lankshear duly drilled home from the spot soon afterwards - 3-0.

Hoyle refused to acknowledge that the game was effectively over as a contest at this point, outlining her intentions with a free-kick which gave Bindon some work in the 57th minute.

>From the ‘keeper’s clearance, a free-kick was earned which Lankshear delivered beyond the far post, where Jackman was lurking. Drifting past two players, she slipped the ball to Thompson, who forced Wood to turn the ball round the post from the tightest of angles. Cox’s resulting corner picked out Erceg’s head, but Collins was back to clear the danger.

After Erceg had spurned a golden chance to increase United’s lead when one-on-one with Wood, and Jackman had stormed forward to join the attack before rattling the bar with a cross-shot, the game entered its final fifteen minutes, which were to prove rather eventful.

The first act was committed by Bindon, whose poor clearance allowed Trebilcock and Nixon to team up. Her cross arced over the goalkeeper’s head, and unfortunately for Rovers, just over that of the flying figure of Gibbs as well.

Four minutes later, United went 4-0 up. Jackman released Smith down the right with a measured pass which the flyer took on in her stride. Sweeping past an opponent, she sent a cross careering past the far post towards Cox, who gathered it and despatched a low cross into the goalmouth, where Longo deftly steered the sphere home beyond the flailing arms of unfortunate youngster, Wood.

Things got worse still for the visitors in the 83rd minute. Former Rovers player Lankshear had been tussling all game long with some of her old team-mates for possession, and on this occasion, Aitken took exception to the youngster’s challenge, turned round and landed a haymaker on the Under-20 international, felling Lankshear on the spot.

Before referee Waldron could react, Hill led the charge of United players keen to take umbrage with the offender, with Aitken knowing full well that her violent outburst had ended her afternoon. The red card the official flourished duly confirmed this, but no action was taken against those jostling the departing defender.

Cue a raft of opportunities for United to bolster their winning margin. Thompson shot at Wood after being picked out by Hassett, while Longo and Thompson combined to present the now-recovered figure of Lankshear with a shooting chance which she steered wide from in front.

In the 87th minute, a long-range effort from Hassett was spilled by Wood, much to the delight of Thompson, who gained due reward for following in by steering home the rebound, her fiftieth goal in Northern Premier Women’s League football.

Before the finish, Kete, Longo - with a crossbar rattler - Thompson and Erceg spurned chances to build on Three Kings’ 5-0 lead against Claudelands’ nine players, their impressive start to the campaign having come to a spectacular halt at the hands of rivals who are shaping as genuine title contenders.

Three Kings: Bindon; Erceg, Jackman, Hill; Smith, Hassett, Lankshear, Longo, Cox; Kete, Thompson Claudelands: Wood; Lewis (Trebilcock, 30), Aitken (booked, 58; sent off, 83), Braunias, Gibbs; Nixon, Newman (Shadbolt, 75), Hoyle, Lambert (sent off, 55), Stratford (Scott, 64); Collins Referee: Nick Waldron

Next Sunday’s action spotlights the clash of Lynn-Avon and Eastern Suburbs at Ken Maunder Park. Three Kings travel to Glenfield, while the other 1pm affair sees Birkenhead entertaining Hibiscus Coast. An hour earlier, Claudelands host Western Springs.

Details:
Birkenhead United 2 (S. O’Brien (69), M. Genet (89)), Papakura 0 HT 0-0

Eastern Suburbs 5 (M. Gooch (40), L. Somerfield (53), N. Davies (55), G. Vincent (81), M. Oostdam (87)), Glenfield Rovers 0 HT 1-0

Hibiscus Coast 0, Lynn-Avon United 3 (M. Ray (30), S. Gregorius (67), S. Selwyn (75)) HT 0-1

Three Kings United 5 (Z. Thompson (13, 87), M. Smith (26), M. Lankshear (55 pen), A. Longo (79)), Claudelands Rovers 0 HT 2-0