Soccer: Kelly strikes for City's advance

Waitakere United's Chris Bale plays against Auckland City FC's Stuart Kelly. Photo / Steven McNicholl

It was another typical Auckland City versus Waitakere United O-League arm wrestle but this time one team didn't roll up their sleeves.

City, showing no effects of their catch-up game in Noumea earlier in the week and making the most of playing in front of their packed Kiwitea St faithful, deservedly won 1-0 to move to within sight of booking a return to Fifa's Club World Cup in December.

For much of the game they hardly needed to move out of first gear as visiting United failed to seriously test City goalkeeper Jacob Spoonley.

In the United goal it was a different tale as Andy Ralph pulled off two or three miraculous saves to at least afford his team some hope. But that was about all they lived on as the no-nonsense, no-frills Auckland outfit snuffed out any half-promising efforts deftly, turning defence, led by captain Ivan Vicelich, into attack.

City went into the match well aware victory would book group B honours and a home and away play-off with group A front-runners, Vanuatu champions Amicale FC, who 24 hours earlier, and with only 10 players for the last 65 minutes, had thumped Fiji's Lautoka 5-1 in front of 7000 fans in Port Vila.

In the other group A match, defending champions Hekari United (PNG) offered little as their season continued to disintegrate, losing 2-1 to Koloale FC (Solomon Islands) in Honiara. In the other group B match, AS Magenta, after losing 1-0 to Auckland City on Monday, bounced back to upset Tahiti's AS Tefana 3-0 in Papeete.

The last round in both groups and with all matches to be played concurrently, is on March 19 but are of little consequence unless Amicale lose by a hatful and Lautoka win by as many against Hekari in Port Moresby.

City's Spanish striker Manel Exposito swept an early chance over the top but shortly after combined with Adam Dickinson to set up Stu Kelly for what was to prove the game's decisive strike, which gave Ralph no chance after he was beaten to the ball on the edge of the penalty area.

Exposito, who had scored the only goal of the match in Noumea, then became the first of referee Peter O'Leary's seven bookings which will sideline him for the inconsequential game against Tefana. Apart from the occasional set play and those odd attempts by City, there were few clear-cut scoring chances.

"Devastated" was Waitakere coach Neil Emblen's reaction. "We matched them for endeavour but we did not test Jake Spoonley. They [City] battled well. It was a blood and guts sort of game but we didn't fire."

City co-coach Ramon Tribulietx also complimented the opposition, saying "it was a great, entertaining game. They played well but were under pressure to win. For us it was about staying cool. We did that and a team rather than individual effort got us through".