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