Football: Tauranga City bounce back from defeat

Tauranga City have bounced back from defeat to claim their second win of the Northern League Football first division.

The 2-0 win over Waitemata on Saturday came after a scratchy start at Links Avenue Reserve and provided a solid response to a 3-0 shutout defeat at the hands of Mount Albert Ponsonby the week prior.

Tauranga's reserve side won the preceding game 4-0 on Saturday and first team coach Nic Millichip says the result helped lift his team.

"We all train together and it was great to see a result like that. We corrected a few things from last week and we won the right tackles. We really put the loss behind us and learned from it and we knew we could do better."

Tauranga travel to the North Shore on Good Friday for their week-four fixture against Forrest Hill-Milford United and Millichip says it will be another tough test.

"They will be pretty organised and for us it is about doing nothing silly. We have to stick to our game plan, be solid in our defensive setup transitions and maintain not getting scored against. If we do that, we know what we will have."

"We are getting sorted with injuries and we want to be consistent with what we can get out on the park. That is about depth and it really is a wider squad and bringing that whole way of thinking together. Every week we are evolving, the basics of our playing philosophy is not changing, but we are bringing in new bits of information."

Meanwhile, in the second division, McDonalds Ngongotahā Men's NRFL first team suffered a 1-0 loss for the second consecutive week.

Ngongotahā coach Andrew Gibbs says another frustrating defensive error led to the defeat to Onehunga-Mangere United on Saturday, after a similar defeat in Whangarei last week.

"In the first half we didn't play to our potential and we made a defensive error on what was a fairly innocuous long ball."

Compounding the one-goal deficit was Ngongotahā being reduced to 10 men following a red card.

"The boys responded well after a talk at halftime. It was simple for us, a goal down makes the coaches' job easy, but after the red card we changed formation with three at the back and sacrificed a striker to keep four in the midfield."

In spite of starting the season with three losses, Gibbs is confident his side will come right.

"Last year we were spoilt, we were arguably one of the best attacking sides in the competition. We would concede the odd goal but score more at the other end."

Gibbs says having players unavailable through injury has not helped his team and he believes the team have the ability to regain their scoring form.

"The attitude is there, and I am happy with how they are putting in the effort. We have some players to come back, but I had players that were capable of winning.

"I will make a structural change this week. We did a training session on Thursday and it was a good opportunity to not run too hard and focus on shooting. They were banging goals in left, right and centre. We have a really strong midfield that can keep the ball for long periods and I think the scoring will sort itself naturally."