The Ultimate New Zealand Soccer Website | home
29/09/96 | 25/04/97 | 06/07/97 | 20/07/97 | 02/10/97 | 03/05/98 | 30/08/98 | 27/09/98 | 25/04/99 | 15/08/99 | 01/09/99 | 14/05/00 | 23/07/00 | 20/08/00 | 06/09/00 | 10/08/03 | 23/05/04 | 01/08/04 | SWANZ Cup 2004 | 14/08/05 | 07/05/06 | 16/07/06 | 10/09/06 | 06/05/07 | 15/07/07 | 25/05/08 | 10/05/09 | 08/07/09 | 19/07/09 | 16/08/09 | 09/09/09 | 16/05/10 | 27/06/10 | 11/4/11 | 24/6/12 | 05/05/13 | 15/05/16 | 26/06/16
06/09/00
Three Kings End Lynn-Avon’s Hopes Of Grand Slam
by Jeremy Ruane
Three Kings United won the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield for the third time in four years at Bill McKinlay Park on September 6, as they overcame newly-crowned Bluebird Northern Premier Women’s League champions Lynn-Avon United 3-1 on penalties, after a pulsating final had ended in a 2-2 draw.
While the final entered the record books as the first in the competition to ever be decided by a penalty shoot-out, the outcome ended Lynn-Avon’s hopes of claiming the much-coveted Grand Slam of Auckland women’s soccer - the Bluebird Northern Premier Women’s League, the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield, the Champion-of-Champions and the Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup - for a second time.
Victory in the final would have seen Lynn-Avon clinch the Champion-of-Champions trophy as well, and set them up nicely for Saturday’s Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup Final against Wairarapa United at North Harbour Stadium.
Three Kings, who were denied a second Grand Slam themselves by Lynn-Avon last season, had other ideas, and turned the tables on their arch-rivals in dramatic fashion.
The game was barely two minutes old when Simone Ferrara, who hadn’t scored at all this season, put that record to rights in no uncertain terms, rocking the Shield holders with an absolute snorter from fully thirty yards!
From broken play, she let fly with a ferocious shot which fair ripped into the right-hand corner of Yvonne Vale’s net, much to the delight of the scorer, and the stunned bemusement of the SWANZ goalkeeper, who made no attempt to save the shot, anticipating that the ball was heading past the post for a goal kick.
It was just the start the game needed, and set up a cracking encounter between these long-standing women’s soccer rivals, who were clashing in their fifth successive final.
After Vale had reacted more positively to an Erin Martin strike from twenty yards, Lynn-Avon came storming back at Three Kings, Amanda Crawford leading the charge. She left Mary-Lou Hendricks and Helen Exler standing in the tenth minute with a tremendous surging run, only to send her shot slamming into the hoardings from twenty yards.
Four minutes later, Terry McCahill sent the ball forward down the right, Crawford hot in pursuit. Exler won the race, but gifted the ball to the striker, who whipped in an inviting cross which Melissa Reber made a complete meal of - she should have scored.
She more than made up for it four minutes later, with a peach of a goal. Crawford and Melissa Wileman worked a short corner on the right, the former ultimately delivering the ball into the danger zone. Three Kings cleared it to the edge of the penalty area, where Reber was lurking, and from where she steered the ball home with pinpoint accuracy into the top right-hand corner of Michelle Hodge’s goal - 1-1, and game on in a big way.
Within two minutes, Reber had struck again, this time with a low drive from twenty-five yards. Hodge got her hands to it, but the ball spun up and flew into the roof of the net, before spinning back into play. Referee’s assistant Phyl Hughes was perfectly placed to confirm it had crossed the line, however, much to Lynn-Avon’s delight.
Hodge produced a fine save to deny Crawford in the 23rd minute, after the striker had completed another surging run by playing a deft one-two with Angela Vujnovich. Within two minutes, the action had swung to the other end of the park.
Vale, who had already had to hurtle off her line to thwart Maia Jackman’s pursuit of a seemingly lost cause, was forced into action again, this time saving at the feet of Ferrara, after the SWANZ international had been sent through by Martin.
From the resulting clearance, a hanging cross from Jill Corner was misjudged by Hodge, the ball falling kindly for Reber. The goalkeeper recovered quickly to prevent the midfielder from completing her hat-trick, then got her body right behind drives from both Crawford and Vujnovich before the half-hour mark had passed.
Martin and Crittenden combined to release Jackman down the left moments before the interval, but the reigning Auckland Women’s Player of the Year couldn’t make up her mind whether to cross or shoot from the byline, the outcome being easy pickings for Vale, as Martin came storming in anticipating the pull-back.
The second half was every bit as gripping as the first forty minutes - due to the participation of social grade teams in this competition, forty minute halves are the norm, as opposed to the usual forty-five minute spells.
As they did in the first half, Three Kings started strongly, Martin’s twenty-yard shot on the turn forcing Vale to save just two minutes in, after Jackman had burst down the left. Four minutes later, Martin sent Kim Rowney scampering away down the right. With Lynn-Avon’s defence caught out, she chipped the advancing Vale, only for the crossbar to come to the goalkeeper’s rescue.
Crawford again led Lynn-Avon’s response, her 52nd minute thirty-yarder flying a yard wide of Hodge’s right-hand post, the goalkeeper airborne and at full stretch to make certain her goal would not be breached once more.
Back came Three Kings three minutes later, the full-of-running Ferrara leading the charge, ably supported by Rowney on this occasion. The former’s cross from the right flashed across the face of goal, just a yard too far in front of Jackman as she raced in looking to head home.
Lynn-Avon returned the favour seconds later, Jennifer Carlisle sending Crawford and Vujnovich scampering through once more. Only a timely tackle from Exler thwarted the danger on this occasion, while at the other end of the park eight minutes later, Vale needed two attempts to keep out Ferrara’s downward header, after Martin and Crittenden had linked on the left, the latter picking out her team-mate with a measured cross.
Crawford and Dana Heiford went agonisingly close with efforts from the twenty-yard mark in the 68th and 69th minutes respectively. The former’s free-kick cleared the crossbar by barely a foot, while the latter’s cracking volley flew inches past the post seconds later, with Hodge in full flight after it.
Lynn-Avon, who has struggled with injuries of late, were now beginning to visibly tire - McCahill had already begun stretching her legs just after the hour mark. Crawford was, as ever, still full of running, and a 71st minute solo effort took her past three players and into the penalty area on the left. But her well-struck shot was matched by Hodge’s solid save to her left, and Three Kings breathed again.
Two minutes later, they were back on level terms. Carlisle was harshly adjudged to have handled the ball just outside the penalty area by referee Alex Paterson, a decision that presented last season’s beaten finalists with the chance to draw level. They duly took it, Martin finding the top left-hand corner of Vale’s net with a fierce drive - 2-2, and extra-time just seven minutes away.
Straight from the kick-off, Crawford surged forward, only for Lothian to get a vital foot in. The ball fell kindly for Vujnovich, but Hodge was right behind the shot once more. She sent the ball forward once more, the start of a raid which saw Three Kings find the net once more.
This time, however, Rowney’s goal was ruled out for a foul on Vale by Jackman, the striker’s eagerness to get on the end of Exler’s driven free-kick into the zone seeing her collide with the goalkeeper. The ball fell invitingly for Rowney, but even as she was sweeping it home, referee Paterson was blowing his whistle for the defensive free kick.
Two minutes from time, Jackman just failed to get on the end of a Martin cross, much to Lynn-Avon’s relief. The Shield holders sent the ball forward, and earned a free kick near the edge of the penalty area in stoppage time.
Corner touched the ball inside to Heiford, whose teasing shot dipped just over the bar, signalling an extra ten minutes each way - exactly what Lynn-Avon didn’t want, in light of their Women’s Knockout Cup Final date at North Harbour Stadium in three days’ time.
In contrast with what had gone before, extra time was short on scoring opportunities - two in total - but not on rain, which began to fall early in the second period.
The first chance fell Three Kings’ way in the 88th minute. Crittenden and the solidly performed Tarah Cox combined to send Martin away down the left, and Ferrara, at full stretch, headed her cross across the face of goal.
Five minutes from the end of extra-time, another solo charge from Crawford came to an end when Hendricks thrust out a foot to flick the ball away. Reber was following up, but shot tamely at Hodge, who, with Vale, was now left with facing a penalty shoot-out.
McCahill stepped up for Lynn-Avon, and struck the underside of the crossbar with her shot. The ball bounced down and spun back into play, but referee’s assistant Hughes ruled that it hadn’t crossed the line, presenting Exler with the chance to give Three Kings the lead.
She sent the ball sailing over the crossbar, however, so it was left to Crawford to find the target from twelve yards. The SWANZ international did, but only via the hands of Hodge, the goalkeeper left to punch the ground in frustration at the sight of the ball nestling in the bottom left-hand corner of the net.
Crittenden was next up, and she confidently stroked home into the top corner to equalise. It was now Wileman’s turn, but Hodge dived to her right to save comfortably. With Vale beaten all ends up by Ferrara, the shoot-out favoured Three Kings, 2-1.
Dead-ball specialist Heiford was next in the firing line for Lynn-Avon, needing to score to keep them in the game. But she fired over the top from twelve yards, leaving Anne-Marie Scott with the task of winning the Shield for Three Kings with her penalty.
To the uncontained delight of her team-mates, Scott’s shot found the bottom corner of the net, bringing to an end the most dramatic Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield final in the competition’s history.
Three Kings: Hodge; Hendricks (O’Hara, 57), Exler, Lothian; Rowney, Crittenden, Cox, Scott, Jackman (booked, 99); Martin, Ferrara
Lynn-Avon: Vale; Corner, McCahill, Wells (Pedruco, 40), Carlisle; Parkinson, Wileman, Heiford, Reber; Crawford, Vujnovich
Referee: Alex Paterson
|