BNU Masters 3 v Naenae Pace, 8/5/10 at Happy Valley
2-7 (HT 1-4)

Naenae have a strong attack and solid midfield, and are deservedly top of the table. They effectively won this game in the first 20 minutes, and though play was fairly competitive thereafter, they were probably capable of stepping up the pace again if we threatened to catch up.

We conceded directly from the kick-off. After we lost possession in the middle of the park, they took a couple of quick passes to get the ball to a striker who first went wide right then hit a dipping shot across the goal which Pete got a hand to but could only push into the top corner. Playing into the wind, we had trouble getting the ball out of defence and after a few goal-kicks and corners, they played a low corner to the near post which another striker volleyed very sweetly in off the post. Then we conceded another to a dipping shot from the edge of the 18-yard box, and another from a header at the far post from a corner. 4-0 down after 17 minutes. It looked like it might be a long day unless a freak natural disaster could justify abandoning the game. But they either started tiring, or letting up, or we played better, and we started getting and keeping possession and making their defence do some work. We managed to force some corners, and one of these that Ian hit at the near post was obviously controlled by a defender's arm, and we had a penalty. Ian (again? Where was the queue of volunteers?) hit this one well under the crossbar, with the keeper making a spectacular dive the wrong way. He almost got a second a few minutes later, picking up a loose ball from a Naenae corner and haring up the right wing. The chasers gave up, and for some reason the Naenae backline retreated to cover Phil running down the middle, so a direct path to goal opened up. The keeper was even kind enough to come off his line and leave a gap at the near post, but by this stage Ian was overstretched and his flick went too close to the keeper. It might have made the game more interesting if we had got back to a 2-goal margin.
We kept Naenae scoreless for the rest of the half, and were hopeful that in the second half with the wind and slope in our favour, we might get 1 or 2 more goals and put some pressure on them. However, that didn't work out. A couple of basic mistakes and failure to clear early in the half presented them with some easy goals with Pete caught out of position while we should have been still in possession. Much of the rest of the half was played in the middle with Naenae rarely getting chances to shoot thanks to Kevin, Rob, Chris L and Steve tackling hard and closing down space. But we weren't making much progress forward, relying mainly on Pete's downwind clearances to force Naenae backs to keep out high balls. Meanwhile, one of the Naenae central mid-fielders, despite looking very non-svelte, was good at winning 50-50 tackles, protecting the ball, and laying it off for wide runners.

The highlight of our game came about 10 minutes from the end. Paul B brought the ball in from the left wing, jinked until he made space to shoot, and hit a screamer from about 25m over the keeper and in off the underside of the bar. We had a few short periods of pressure on their goal - one corner led to a scramble with the ball eventually bouncing in front of Dave D whose volley skimmed over the bar.  Unfortunately, it was Naenae who put the finishing touch to the game with a last-minute goal when a forward got around our defence and took a low shot from an acute angle.

After a good start to the season, we've now lost four consecutive games and slid to second bottom, while the top couple of teams have gone way ahead of the pack. By some quirk of Capital Football scheduling, it looks like we're about to start the second round before completing the first, and we're hoping to pick up some points in return games against teams we should have done better against the first time.

Ian Smart