ASB Premiership Week 5 Review

Like last week only 3 games played as Auckland City were of in Japan for the World Club Cup. They lost 2-0 to Sanfreece Hiroshima, who have just recently won their 3^rd J-League title in 4 years. A goalkeeping error form Jacob Spoonley gave Sanfreece the lead after 10 minutes, they then parked the bus and let Auckland City play around with the ball (Auckland City ended up with 67% of the possession) and then got a 2^nd late on. So there was no repeat for last years heroics for Auckland City.

Canterbury United disposed of WaiBOP United 2-0 in front of a decent crowd at ASB Football Park in Christchurch on Thursday. A couple of years ago when NZF got local fans to write the match reports for them, they would publish attendance numbers but then they revamped their website and stopped doing it which is a shame, although the numbers weren't great which could be why they don't publish them anymore!

The advertised TV game on Sunday was Team Wellington v Southern United, however Dave Farrington Park isn't able to support a full Sky TV set up so the TV game was switched to Hawke's Bay United v Wellington Phoenix. Southern United put up a brave fight, before conceding 3 goals in the last 10 minutes to lose 4-1

The game that ended up on TV was a cracker. Hawke's Bay United playing into the wind in the first half and their defenders impersonating Swiss cheese went into half time 4-0 down.

HBU coach Brett Angell must have given them one hell of a rev up because they came out a different team and within 10 minutes of the restart had pulled 2 goals back, before giving away a penalty. With the wind meaning the game was played largely in the Phoenix half it wasn't long before more goals came for HBU, the last coming in the 2^nd minute of injury time to give them a 5-5 draw

Heres the goals

Goal of the week – 2 great free kicks, Chris Bale for Team Wellington and Zane Sole for Hawke's Bay United, both great goals, but the award this week goes to Sam Mason-Smith for his 2^nd in the 2^nd minute of injury time which gave Hawke's Bay United a 5-5 draw.

Other football

Team Wellington won the youth league, thanks to a last minute winner in Canterbury and Waitakere United going down 4-3 to Southern United

And the big news this week was the announcement of the new teams for next season, Eastern Suburbs, Hamilton Wanderers & Tasman United. More on that later on.

 

In the beer league, just the one game Team Wellington represented by Garage Project's Cereal Milk Stout came up against Emerson's Southern Clam Stout. Both very good stouts with lovely coffee and malt aromas, both smooth and velvety. Emerson's claims a hint of the briny and this kicked in at the end of the bottle and gave them the edge to take it out 3-2.

Results

Just Football

Canterbury United     2    WaiBOP United        0

Hawkes Bay United   5    Wellington Phoenix  5

Beer & Football

Team Wellington        4    Southern United       1

Garage Project Ceral Milk Stout (4.7%) 2 Emerson's Southern Clam Stout (6%) 3