Petone 0 – 2 BNU Thirds

First game of the season saw us playing at the “home of football”, no not Wembley, it turns out that the home of football is actually Memorial Park, Petone.  Although new opposition for us, Petone having been relegated down from Capital 3, their goalkeeper seemed strangely familiar. It struck me towards the end of the game (I obviously had too much time on my hands with us being in the very unusual position of coasting to a 2-0 victory) that we were playing against the great Colombian Rene Higuita. There was no scorpion kicks or curly locks, but the eccentric playing style, taking unnecessary risks and being prone to blunders was unmistakeable.

Taking advantage of a typically blustery wind we tried a few punts up field, and super Rene lost one such high ball into the box in the sun which allowed big Johnny to stride forward and poke home from a yard out. We finished the half 1-0 up thanks to our keeper, Paul, blocking a couple of good shots..tipping one on to the post and out to safety. The second half saw us go to the bench early, Adam a new signing for us this year making a good impact on the left and it wasn’t long before Rene was up to his tricks again – this time losing the ball way out of his area allowing Keagan to deflect the ball towards Brent who made no mistake firing into the empty net.  The second goal seemed to deflate the youthful home side and as the game wore on we took control of the midfield which led to some uncharacteristically good passing moves although we couldn’t quite add to the scoreline.

So in all in all a good day, a victory for ‘experience’ over youth, a clean sheet and 3 points..things can only go one way from here…

Nigel Moore