FOOTBALL
JIMMY Somerton and Oska Smith will remember Saturday, April 24, 2021, for different but equally valid reasons.
Somerton, 16, scored his first hat-trick in senior football, and it was crucial to Gisborne Thistle’s 5-2 victory over Napier Marist in a Central Federation League game at Childers Road Reserve.
Smith, 15 (16 in August), made his Federation League debut for Waikanae Beach TOP10 Gisborne Thistle, coming on in the 52nd minute for deep-lying striker Agustin Ventre.
Smith stayed wide on the right, and Somerton moved infield to take Ventre’s place in the team set-up.
The score was 2-1 to Marist at the time, so the move must be rated a game-changer.
Key to the change in fortunes was the difference in style of two players filling the same position, each doing what they were put there to do.
Ventre was in the team because Jarom Brouwer was unavailable, and he was to be a “false 9” or deep-lying striker.
Ventre is not as fast as Brouwer, but on Saturday he was one of Thistle’s standout players in a disappointing first half.
Dropping deep enough to either shake off markers or draw them out of position, he was often the provider of delicate medium-range passes into the penalty area for wingers Oli Davies and Somerton to run on to. At other times he was the link in a chain that would end in a shot one move further along.
The problem was Thistle’s finishing. It was wasteful, as if it didn’t matter if a chance was squandered . . . another would be along in a minute.
And while that’s not a bad attitude for strikers to have after they’ve missed a sitter, it becomes a worry if the other side keep scoring.
When Somerton moved into the central striking role, he played more like a traditional centre-forward — holding the ball, taking on defenders, looking to shoot.
His first goal, which made the score 2-2, came when Thistle had only 10 men on the field. Goalkeeper Mitchell Stewart-Hill had been shown the yellow card for dissent and sent to the sideline for 10 minutes in the sin bin.
In the 63rd minute, seven minutes after the sin-binning, Somerton got the ball just outside the penalty area. With Marist players surrounding him, he seemed to lose the ball. Then, Houdini-like, he emerged from the ruck and screwed a left-foot shot into the far corner of the goal (keeper’s left) from just inside the area.
Thistle went ahead five minutes later, when holding midfielder Cullen Spawforth — fresh from a 10-minute spell between the sticks that would have done his goalkeeping dad John proud — curled in a left-wing corner for Ander Batarrita to head home at hip-height within the goal area (six-yard box).
As the game was about to restart, Thistle central midfielder and skipper Nick Land was replaced by Ema Martos.
Land’s qualities were most evident in that dangerous seven-minute period between Stewart-Hill’s sin-binning and Somerton’s first goal. Thistle had a dispirited look and seemed ready to implode, but there was Land — changing up a gear — grafting all over the middle of the park, willing his teammates on by example. To their credit, they responded.
Davies, 16, played key roles in the build-up to Somerton’s second and third goals.
In the 75th minute, Davies made a run down the left and squared the ball across the face of the goal. The attempted clearance got no further than Somerton, 15 metres out, and he put it away.
In the 83rd, Davies got away down the left again and cut the ball back to Somerton, on his own in the middle of the goalmouth, to complete the scoring.
Smith proved a handful on the right flank. His speed enabled him to cut in towards goal early once he’d pushed the ball past his fullback. This caused all sorts of problems for the chasing defender, not least the possibility of giving away a penalty by clipping the heels of the winger cutting across him.
The final scoreline had been barely conceivable at halftime.
Thistle had failed to convert five reasonable chances — not counting rightback Brandon Josling’s 30-metre belter that hit the crossbar — when Marist scored in the 31st minute.
Right midfielder Sam Lack showed great composure as he rode two challenges and laid the ball on to striker Liam Percy-Fysh, who gave himself an extra touch to get in the clear and lash an unstoppable shot from the edge of the penalty area.
Thistle equalised in the 44th minute, 18-year-old centreback Ryan Anderson rising high on the edge of the goal area, towards the near post, to score with a delightful glancing header into the far corner.
Thistle’s relief was short-lived. A minute later, central midfielder Yeshnil Naiker took a free-kick from just outside Thistle’s penalty area. The ball took a deflection and eluded Stewart-Hill to give Marist the halftime lead.
Despite Thistle’s first-half struggle to find their rhythm, the defence put in a relatively assured shift. Batarrita marshalled them well, Anderson was solid, and fullbacks Kuba Jerabek and Josling offered attacking qualities as well.
Stewart-Hill’s handling of the high ball was a feature, and he will bank the lessons learned from an intercepted throw and his sin-binning.
In midfield, Spawforth’s educated right foot was showing off its long-distance capabilities to good effect, while Tomek Frooms mixed it up with the shorter-passing game.
The 22 minutes that Martos had on the field were beautifully set up by a first-time through ball, delivered with the outside of his right foot, that set Davies away on the left. Marist keeper Alex Schroder narrowed the angle and the shot hit him on the head and bounced to safety.
For Marist, strikers Percy-Fysh and Reuben Moffitt both showed they had sledgehammer shots . . . Stewart-Hill made a good reflex save of Moffitt’s 77th-minute effort.
Sam Lack and Naiker shone in midfield, and centrebacks Oscar Cooper and skipper Jackson Durrington were solid until Thistle’s fourth-quarter surge. Schroder performed heroics in goal.
Thistle coach Garrett Blair was proud of the resilience his team showed when they equalised while they were a man down, and he was heartened by the performance of his teenage strikers — two 16-year-olds and a 15-year-old.
Marist coach Ken Cooper said Thistle deserved to win, but he thought 3-2 would have been a fair result.
“We have a young team — three of our back four are 16 years old — and we have a good core of experienced players,” he said.
“We are getting scoring opportunities, but you have to do it for 90 minutes rather than 45.”