Canterbury proves a class above

Southern United’s Britney-Lee Nicholson competes with Canterbury United’s Whitney Hepburn for the...
Southern United’s Britney-Lee Nicholson competes with Canterbury United’s Whitney Hepburn for the ball at their national women’s league match at Sunnyvale Park. Photo: Christine O'Connor
Different match, same result.

Southern United was beaten 3-1 by Canterbury United in their national women’s league game at Sunnyvale yesterday, two days after the sides reached the same scoreline in Christchurch.

The class of Football Fern Annalie Longo was evident for the visitors.

She showed tremendous skill in setting up goals on either side of halftime to give Canterbury its two-goal buffer.

A fantastic piece of work from Longo forced Chelsea Whittaker to scramble, eventually bringing her down in the box.

Longo — the regular penalty-taker — remained down, but Macee Fraser stepped up to bury the penalty right on halftime.

It was a cruel blow after Southern had done well to contain Canterbury and looked to have done enough to go to halftime at 1-1.

Longo was back eight minutes after halftime, running a circle around half the Southern team in the box.

That drew the defence across and she was able to find Cody Taylor, who made it 3-1.

From that point it was tough going for Southern. A couple of half-chances came, but a comeback proved too much.

Earlier, Southern took the lead on counterattack  in the sixth minute.

Lara Wall did well to turn over the ball, before passing up the line into space for Ruby Anderson.

Anderson showed her speed to beat the defence to the ball, before calmly finishing.

Canterbury equalised four minutes later, when a messy free kick left Taylor with an open goal.

From there both sides created several chances, but were unable to capitalise.

Canterbury pressed high and played the Southern ball receivers tight.

That helped it turn over a lot of ball and put the Southern defence under pressure.However, Southern proved tough to break.

Goalkeeper Jordan Woodward made several fantastic saves, and Whittaker did well to keep out a near-certain goal from 2m.

Meanwhile, Southern used its pace to counter at the other end, but was unable to find the goal again.

Southern coach Ignacio Sande said it was a tough loss, acknowledging that Canterbury was a very good side.

He said Longo was dangerous and the team knew its strengths and used them well.

Despite that it was disappointing to get no points out of the double-header weekend.

"Yeah, of course [it is disappointing]," he said.

"We all have the vision to win all the games, so the team is disappointed.

"But also we realise now we start the second half of the season and we can do better and we will improve with the games.

"So we’ll look up and never look down."

The win leaves Canterbury a perfect six wins from six games at the halfway point of the season.

Southern remains tied with Capital in fourth, on seven points, but has played an extra game.

It trails Auckland and Northern on 11 and eight points respectively.

Both have a game in hand and play each other tomorrow.

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