BNU Thirds 0-1 Lower Hutt Ancient Ones - 06/6/09

"…all we want is a decent referee…a decent referee…a decent referee"

Supporting the BNU Brazilians (or Thirds as we call ourselves to avoid slander lawsuits from the Brazilian FA) is fast becoming on a par with supporting the Phoenix.  We only have one player who can score goals, a terrible home record and no hope of winning any silverware; the other similarity is the loyal BNU Fever (i.e. Jenny H) can often be heard chanting "all we want is a decent referee".

BNU Thirds 1 - Petone 8

Rearguard in tatters following a designer spanking

Following on from last weeks encouraging result (match postponed) we went into the game against the top team full of enthusiasm. Despite fielding a weakened team due to missing a few players because of the long weekend, we competed well for the first 5 minutes before experiencing first hand why the Armani’s are top - their striker beating our defence on the turn before finding the top of the net with an unstoppable shot.

At this point the doubting Thomas’ amongst us might have been fearing a glut of goals to follow in the first half and how wrong they were!! Instead we re-grouped and starting moving the ball around, getting a bit of joy down the right hand side and generally making a decent contest of it. To be fair the post (one of our stand out performers on the day) came to our rescue a couple of times, and a goal mouth scramble was heroically (some may say ungainly) cleared off the line.

In addition to the post, Tony was doing his upmost to keep the scoring down, making a classy one-handed save batting a swerving ball over the bar drawing comparisons with Ray Clemence  - we won’t mention the incident later in the game that prompted comparisons with Bruce Grobbelaar!

Up the other end of the field, Keagan was close to getting his first of the season, their keeper managing to get enough on the shot to knock it out for a corner, and then finally their defence was broken for amazingly only the 4th time this season. Brent, again the man on hand to fire the ball into the net following a devastating run from our one-man dynamo Richie, notching his sixth of the season.

So the half ended at 1-1 and the signs were good for taking a battling point away from the game. Unfortunately my memory goes a bit fuzzy for the next 45 mins, although I’m told a harshly awarded penalty (standard), 2 own goals and some great finishing feature as the lowlights of the half!

So all in all, very little positives to take from being on the wrong end of a stuffing Giorgio Armani himself might well have enjoyed.

Nigel Moore

BNU reserves travelled to Alex Moore Park in Johnsonville on Saturday for the season's return fixture against North Wellington. We'd drawn 1-1 at Wakefield in the first game of the season and we were determined to do our best to better the result. We arrived for the 2:30 kickoff amidst a not so pleasant southerly storm, with BNU's own weatherman Rob Kerr predicting conditions to worsen.

We started strong and applied plenty of first half pressure, with the forward pairing of Victor and Fatah causing the opposition defence all sorts of problems. Our centre-back pairing of Dave Tompkins (in his last game of the season) and Issac Nana worked hard to repel the thrusts of North Wellington's attacks and captain Jimmy Cooper controlled his side of the pitch while causing havoc with his menacing passes. Our efforts were rewarded when Fatah, with his 3rd goal in 3 games, scored from close range after 35 minutes to put BNU ahead by a goal going into half time.

The second half saw North Wellington come out firing and we were pegged back in our half for long periods. Dave Tompkins put in some crunching tackles and centre midfielders Joe and Semyen pushed themselves hard to shut down the opposition's attacks. It took a superb strike from North Wellington to level the scores at 1-1 and we were forced to dig in to try and force a win. Wide players Wendell and Aiden put in strong efforts up the flanks, with Aiden come agonisingly close to grabbing victory for BNU with a long range effort that just curled wide.

Time was called on the game with the scores still tied at 1-1. Another solid team performance from BNU and a win is surely just around the corner.

Craig Adolph

BNU Reserves 1 - Upper Hutt City 2

Wakefield park was in pretty good nick after all the rain during the week. The windy weather was threatening but held off until after our game.

BNU fielded a good competitive team and dominated the beginning of the first half. We created chances and we're unluck not to score on several attacking pieces. Late in the first half Upper Hutt put on the pressure and we conceded a soft penalty (yes, it was me - hand ball in the box) which really let them off the hook.

The second half started poorly for BNU and we conceded another goal when a through ball was not picked up, confusion all around, and a Hutt player pounced on a fortuitous bounce.

But, the Reserves dug deep and the game started to go our way. Dave Thompkins had another solid game at the back with Rom (and his giant bruised knee) in support. Liban performed well in centre midfield all day and new arrival Victor came on mid second half and created great chances. He got in to the box and was bought down. Fatah converted the pen and the game was on.

We battled hard and we we're unlucky to pick up any points from the game. A good performance from the team - I'm sure we'll be picking up a few wins soon.

Matt Dillon