Football: Big defeats for cellar dwellers

Darren Hart
Darren Hart
The Football South Premier League wrapped up on Saturday with two typical results as bottom sides University and Northern sustained heavy losses.

At Forrester Park, Mosgiel beat University 7-1 - and student coach Darren Hart got close up views of the action as he played in goal.

At Tahuna Park, Dunedin Technical went one better with an 8-1 win, and again there was a makeshift goalkeeper. Lewis Houghton played his first match with the gloves.

Obviously, both defeated sides were running on near empty, and they finished bottom equal on the FPL table with five competition points from 18 games.

Interestingly, both defeated sides had decent spells of play tucked away in their matches.

Jeremy Fong showed enough class for University to interest sideline selectors, but the striker is heading home to Wellington for the summer.

Northern's goal came from Angus Milne, his third of the season, and with an assist from veteran winger Jim Hedley, that was appreciated by coach Murray Devereux in his last game in charge.

However, it was business as usual for Technical, which turned on an incisive attacking display in Alistair Rickerby's 100th FPL match, and also the final game for striker Taylor McCormack, who is heading overseas.

Technical set the pattern by scoring twice in the first five minutes, and coach Aaron Burgess's only complaint would be in not keeping a clean sheet.

At Forrester Park, Mosgiel had a splendid first half, producing a 5 1 scoreline and football of real quality, even without the suspended Eder Franchini.

Morgan Day scored the first of his two goals in the 20th minute, and among many well constructed attacks, a rare goal by Isaac Snell drew applause as Regan Coldicott produced a perfect cross for Snell to lace the ball in just on halftime.

Mosgiel coach Andrew Brook was less happy with a second half in which Mosgiel lost its cutting edge.

''We lost shape, and players either did not do enough or tried to do too much,'' Brook said.

He did single out midfielder Day for praise, and also Queenstown based centreback Tom Cairns.

''He played very well during the game, and is a model of enthusiasm, fitting in work commitments with the travelling he has to do for every match.''

In the early game at Tahuna Park, Caversham won the Chinese Charity Trophy - contested by the two top teams in Fletcher Cup competition - by beating Dunedin Technical 7-2.

It was a second consecutive Cup win for Caversham, which led 4-2 at the break. On the scoresheet for Caversham were Callum Flaws (two), Sam Cosgrove, Ben Wade, Brent Clifford, Tim Cook and Bradley Scott.

Technical was always in the hunt, helped by goals from Alistair Moore and Luke Le Brun.

 

 

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