North
Wellington 2 Miramar Rangers 2nds 1
Capital
Premier Division
Alex
Moore Turf
Saturday
2nd April 2016
Attendance
about 25
We've
had Easter, the clocks have gone back, the Phoenix are stuttering to
the end of the season trying to forget all about it and the winter
season has started. My intention this season is to get to every
club in Wellington at least once. So I started with North Wellington
as my first blog ever was at a North Wellington game, it's also
the closest to where I live and that helped as I was going to the
Phoenix game in the evening.
 |
| Shohei Watanbe |
North
Wellington are back in Capital Premier after an absence of 10 years
and are being picked as one of the title contenders for the season. They
won Capital 1 last season by 17 points scoring 70 goals and conceding
just 19 in their 18 games. The squad is pretty much the same with the
addition of Karl Romijn from Tawa, Justin Waayer from Petone and
Shohei Watanabe from Japan.
Miramar
Rangers are the reserve side for the Central League team, they
finished 3rd in this league last year. However this is
effectively a new team with only Chris Conway & CJ Atkinson from
last season that could be considered regulars and 6 players making
debuts.
The start was a bit odd, Miramar were still in the changing rooms when the
ref led the teams on to the pitch, maybe they were a bit scared of
what sort of handshakes they would get from North Wellington now that
they are sponsored by the Johnsonville Masons!
It
took North Wellington just 8 minutes to open the scoring when 2
debutant's combined, Karl Romijn fired in a cross from the left for
Shohei Wantanabe to head in. The rest of the half Miramar had the
majority of possession but didn't really go anywhere near the North
Wellington goal, only having 1 shot. Miramar equalised early in the
2nd half when they were awarded a penalty for handball and
Peter Halsted sent Ben Shields the wrong way.
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| Miramar equalise with a penalty |
The
game was fairly even, North Wellington were defending well and twice
their defenders made vital goal line clearances. Just as you were
starting to think this will end in a draw and that will be a fair
result, North Wellington's Chris Hutchinson, making his 102nd
appearance for the club sent in a cross, which Watanabe sent a
bullet of a header from the penalty spot into the back of the net to
make it 2-1 and that's how it ended.
 |
| Watanabe's 2nd and North Wellington's winner |
North
Wellington extend their unbeaten streak to 15 games and look as
though they have made a couple of good signings in Karl Romijn &
in particular Watanabe who will be one of the player's to watch this
season.
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