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Cook Islands
500 Up For Ferns As Cooks Hit For Six
by Jeremy Ruane
New Zealand's Football Ferns eased into the semi-finals of the OFC Women's Nations Cup at Stade Numa Daly in Noumea on November 22, recording a couple of significant milestones in overcoming a plucky Cook Islands combination 6-0.
Not only was their last goal their 500th in the 244 "A" internationals they've played since 1975, but the appearance of substitute Ria Percival, late in the first half for heat exhaustion victim Malia Steinmetz, saw her join hibernating team-mate Abby Erceg in having played a record 132 times for her country.
Sporting eight changes to the team which started their 11-0 rout of Tonga three days prior, Tom Sermanni's charges set about their task with relish, but quickly found that the Cook Islands wouldn't be pushovers.
Tuka Tisam's team came with a plan, and executed it to the best of their ability agin a team whose speed of thought, ball and movement, not to mention collective experience, is on a different level compared to that of any of the teams on show at this tournament.
It took just three minutes for the Football Ferns to engineer their first opening, Emma Rolston releasing Paige Satchell down the right, from where she sent a cross zooming across the bows of Katie Rood, who, seconds later, wriggled through three challenges on the edge of the penalty area only to see her shot deflected to safety.
The woodwork twice took a pounding in the next eight minutes as Satchell, with a cross, and Rolston - a rifled drive after Katie Bowen and Anna Green had linked on the left - had pulled the trigger.
Two goals in as many minutes put the Football Ferns on course for victory by the quarter hour mark. Annalie Longo pounced to poach the first after Steph Skilton's cross wasn't cleared.
After Rolston had been denied by the awareness and smart positioning of Cooks goalkeeper Marjorie Toru, she extracted revenge by tapping home the second after Bowen's sumptuous angled ball and Green's delicate cushioned volley had unhinged the island nation's defence.
The Cook Islands responded to those setbacks with a spirited rearguard action, their disciplined efforts frustrating the Football Ferns at every turn over the course of the next twenty-five minutes with an offside strike by Rolston the only occasion during this period when their defences were briefly breached.
The Football Ferns relentlessly kept on pressing, however, and after substitute Percival had gone close to marking her record-equalling introduction with a twenty-five yarder which Toru turned away, the same Toru who saved a Longo effort moments later, the reigning Oceania champions finally scored a third goal on the stroke of half-time.
Both the previous attacks had featured crosses from captain Ali Riley, and on this occasion, her delivery picked out the head of Rolston, who sent it bulleting past Toru and in off the underside of the crossbar in the 44th minute.
There was no respite for the Cook Islands once play resumed after the interval. Rolston's bid to complete her hat-trick saw her steer Satchell's cross wide of the near post just twenty-five seconds after the kick-off.
Cue a succession of shots which drew on the talents of Toru to keep them out. She held onto Bowen's twenty-yarder and pawed a teasing Longo cross off
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the heads of both Rolston and Rood, either side of arguably her finest save of the day, a parried effort which prevented Riley from doubling her goal tally for her country some eight years after she last led the goal celebrations.
Longo was the next player in white to be frustrated by the formidable figure of Toru, who foiled Rood then watched Bowen send a twenty-five yarder narrowly past the post before she was finally beaten for a fourth time in the 68th minute.
Skilton, who was often the starting point of many a New Zealand raid, fulfilled that role once more with aplomb on this occasion by picking out Rood with a pass which invited her to weave past a defender before unleashing an unerring twenty-yarder high into the net for her long-overdue maiden goal on the world stage.
Brave goalkeeping by Toru forced Rolston out of real estate in a one-on-one situation two minutes later, after which Percival's dipping drive rattled the crossbar before the Cooks' solidly performed Lee Maoate-Cox drew a solid save from Victoria Esson with the only attempt on goal the island nation mustered all evening.
The Football Ferns continued to carve them out as if slicing and dicing a turkey on the eve of Thanksgiving. Freshly introduced substitute was unable to capitalise on Toru's spilling of the ball as the 'keeper quickly made amends in the 78h minute, then produced a fine save to tip Longo's free-kick, struck from the edge of the 'D', round the post four minutes later.
Liz Anton, soundness personified at centre back, started another attack soon afterwards which culminated in Rood rattling the post, while the central defender couldn't believe her ill fortune seconds later as a delicious cross to the far post by Riley struck Anton and somehow ricocheted over the bar.
You'd have thought the Cooks' goal was leading something of a charmed life, given the number of near misses endured by the Football Ferns throughout this encounter, but their persistence was rewarded in stoppage time by two quick-fire goals from the substitutes.
Concerted pressure was the source of the first, Riley's cross to the far post arcing over Jale but not the better-placed Sarah Morton, who celebrated her first goal for her country in just her third appearance.
Jale wasn't to be denied her second in as many substitute appearances for her country, however. Satchell picked out Morton, who thrashed a shot against the bar with Toru beaten. The rebound fell invitingly to Jale, whose looped finish was New Zealand's 500th goal on the world stage, and their sixth and last of this match.
They could have had another before the final whistle sounded. Rood rampaged past two down the left before picking out Satchell with a cross which invited her to shoot. Fittingly, Toru foiled her opponent once more, something she had done on a number of occasions in the match to restrict the Football Ferns to a 6-0 win.
Cook Is.: Toru; Carr, Urarii, Manuela, Tatuava; Murare (Dean, 75 (booked, 81)), Teinaki (Robati, 69), L. Harmon, Maoate-Cox, M. Harmon; Piri (Hetherington, 55)
Football Ferns: Esson; Riley, Anton, Skilton, Green (Morton, 63); Steinmetz (Percival, 37), Bowen, Longo; Satchell, Rolston (Jale, 77), Rood
Referee: David Yareboinen (Papua New Guinea)
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