Eden Stallions 3-0 Independiente Reserves...

Match report courtesy of H Miller:

The day didn’t start well. I had left my laptop and video camera in Wellington, my keys on the plane, then Owen texts to say we don’t have nets or corner flags as they are at Rob’s, and Rob’s flatmates aren’t home. Some swift Macvad/Warehouse style negotiation from Miller and Robbie, and the Chinese team playing on the pitch before us were eating out of our hands and virtually begging us to use their nets and corner flags.

That sorted, our Seventh Day Adventist referee, Fred, blew his whistle and we were away. Keggie was up to his usual no good winding up the opposition when Hamish Mckinlay scored the first of his 2 goals. We were all over them like a rash in the midfield, and although we had positional domination, their back 3 were reasonably strong compared to the rest of the team so we didn’t score as many goals as we might have had the special needs guy played at the back. Hamish Mckinlay’s second goal was an absolute gem, chipping the keeper into the wind (which for most of the day wasn’t our friend), perfectly weighted. Mckinlay is now on 7 goals, only 3 behind Owen, who seems to have what we call in golf or cricket the “yips”.

By halftime, almost every player in our team had been cautioned for swearing by 7th day Fred. In the second half we dominated even more, but found ourselves sinking to the level of our opposition somewhat. The only light at the end of the tunnel was Miller’s blinding drive into the bottom left hand corner from 30 yards, beating the defender and the keeper with sheer power. In short, we played pretty well, but should have scored more goals.

Our ring in Brett, and our new player Luke played very strong games, as did Jiah and Jamie.

Special mention goes to Bugsy who was unbelievable down the left wing, and also very strong at left back. Some real pace, and some fancy footwork capping off what was a memorable return for the man very few people know as Daniel Ryan.

With little confidence Ben Reid aka Groggo McBooze took the gloves. Talk about Fabian Barthez, there was some magnificent saves during that quarter, the only quarter that they really had any shots on goal. Was this just a coincidence that I was off that quarter?!?