Tauranga City host Oratia on Sunday

EARLY STRIKE: Jordan Culpepper scores Tauranga City's goal in the 1-3 defeat to Ellerslie last week. PHOTO/FILE

Tauranga City United host their first home game of the season against Oratia United at Links Avenue from 3pm on Sunday.

Last weekend Tauranga lost the opening game of the Northern League First Division 1-3 away to Ellerslie with a solitary goal from Jordan Culpepper the highlight from a disappointing result.

Last season's relegation from the Northern League Premier Division to the First Division hit everyone involved with the club hard, after such a memorable season the year before with promotion achieved in remarkable circumstances.

Tauranga had not just to win their final two games at home but make up a 10-goal differential to steal the final promotion spot from North Shore United. They beat Ngaruawahia 6-0 and then held their nerve to beat Mangere United 4-0 to spark wild celebrations at Links Ave.

But that is all in the past as new coach Barry Gardiner begins the promotion chase with several new faces from last season's squad.

Gardiner, who is a football development officer at WaiBop, was hoping for a better result in last week's 1-3 loss to Ellerslie.

"To be honest, we are disappointed about losing the first game of the season. We had a fairly productive pre-season in how we wanted to play the game and implementing our style of play," he said.

"But we hadn't faced the opposition of the level we are playing at, and we got caught a wee bit on the hop in the first half. The pace of the game was probably greater or a higher tempo than we faced in pre-season.

"We certainly improved in the second half and showed signs of the stuff we had been working on and were probably a little unlucky to maybe not get a point out of the game."

Gardiner has several key players still out injured but is confident of taking the three points from Sunday's match with Oratia.

"We are looking to rectify last week's result and put things right and get our first win of the season to get ourselves off the mark."

Kick-off on Sunday is at 3pm with Tauranga v Oratia Reserves at 12.30pm.