ONE OF FOUR: Gisborne Thistle striker Davie Ure (right) celebrates his fourth goal with teammates Charlie Morris (No.18) and Ashley McMillan. Thistle beat Napier Marist Seconds 7-0 in a Pacific Premiership game on Saturday. Picture by Paul Rickard
Davie Ure scored four of Gisborne Thistle's goals in their 7-0 victory over Napier Marist Seconds at Childers Road Reserve on Saturday.
The win kept the Jags in second place in football's Pacific Premiership, six points behind Napier side Port Hill but with a game in hand.
Meanwhile, Gisborne United dropped a place to fourth when they lost 2-0 away to Maycenvale.
Gisborne Vehicle Testing Thistle were chasing a good result after the disppointment of the previous week's 3-1 loss to Heavy Equipment Services Gisborne United in the derby at Harry Barker Reserve.
Coach Garrett Blair tweaked his formation, playing something like 4-3-3 and allowing English import Tomek Frooms more freedom in an attacking midfield role.
The front three of Justo Rodriguez on the left, Ure in and around the middle, and either Brandon Josling on the right or Frooms, anywhere he could cause problems, kept Thistle dangerous on attack.
Ema Martos and skipper Nick Land did the heavy lifting in midfield — fetching, carrying and tackling.
In that department, they were up against experienced midfield campaigners Mitchell Dick and Don Butler, who worked hard till the end.
Marist are well served by their senior players. They support and look after the youngsters.
Leftback Connor Underhill and centreback Jayden Barrow were the “old heads” in defence, and they kept things competitive even when the goals started piling up.
Five of the Marist starting line-up are schoolboy players who had to play half a game for their school team before they travelled north on Saturday.
Childers Road Reserve No.1 looked a little the worse for wear at the end of the main game on Saturday, and the damp, grassy turf would have taxed the legs of teenagers playing their second game of the day. One or two of them looked “leggy” early in the match.
Nevertheless, Marist tried to play football. It was just that they came up against a motivated Thistle team with several points to prove . . . to themselves as much as anyone.
Jags goalkeeper Mark Baple didn't have a lot to do but showed his class with three saves late in the game to keep the clean sheet intact. In the 75th minute he tipped a Butler header over the bar, then got a vital touch to the resulting corner. A minute from time, Marist looked set for a consolation goal but Baple spread himself and blocked the shot with his legs.
Centrebacks Daniel Venema and Ander Batarrita were safe and composed, while rightback Emerson Araya and leftback Kuba Jerabek were hard to get past and adventurous going forward. Jerabek made some telling interceptions to break up Marist attacks down his wing.
Although the final score suggests a thrashing, Marist did not concede the third goal until the 52nd minute, and the first two had elements of bad luck.
In the 15th minute, Araya crossed from the right, Rodriguez contested the high ball with keeper Ryan Todd, both missed it and the ball brushed the chest of 15-year-old centreback Oscar Cooper. As the ball bobbled goalwards, Cooper missed his clearing kick and the ball crossed the goal-line for one of the unluckiest own goals you're likely to see.
Cooper recovered to play a steady game in a losing cause, as did his centreback partner Barrow who, a minute before halftime, conceded a penalty when his sliding attempt to stop a shot by Josling resulted in handball. Batarrita made it 2-0 from the penalty spot.
Jerabek's strong run down the left and low cross behind the Marist defensive line made the third goal. Ure darted on to the ball, pushed it past the keeper and sidefooted it home.
Three minutes later, Josling burst clear of the defensive line and finished clinically . . . 4-0.
In the 67th, Rodriguez tore away down the left and crossed low. Ure slid in for a goal poacher's finish at the near post.
Five minutes later, Frooms played the ball into space for Rodriguez, who made ground and returned the ball to Frooms inside the penalty area. Frooms was upended and, by common assent, Ure took the spot kick and brought up his hat-trick.
Ure saved his most spectacular goal of the day until the 87th minute. He gathered the ball 30 metres from goal and let fly. The keeper never stood a chance as the ball sailed in at the top left corner.
It capped a terrific game for Ure, who was still chasing down passes in the last 10 minutes. He could have had five goals . . . a minute after Thistle's first, he hit the bar with a lobbed volley.
Agustin Ventre came on for Martos with just over half an hour to go, and Charlie Morris, Ashley McMillan and Travis White came on for Araya, Josling and Rodriguez for the last 20 minutes. It showed the strength of Thistle's bench that no let-up was apparent.
Referee Chris Niven showed the yellow card to Marist's Underhill and Dick for tackling infringements, and that was enough to calm things down when passions ran high.
Blair had told his players to take things one game at a time and to focus on what they could control.
He was happy with the effect of the tweaks in formation. Ure took his goals well, and Frooms, Rodriguez and Josling had adapted to make the changes work.
Marist coach Ken Cooper said the experienced players in his side kept going, but the youngsters who had already played a game showed signs of fatigue. Thistle were the better team but he had hoped for a better performance from his side.
Gisborne United coach Corey Adams said his team felt the absence of sweeper Kieran Higham and midfielder Jarom Brouwer in their game against Maycenvale in Hawke's Bay. Higham had booked a South Island holiday before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the football season and Brouwer had been accepted for police college.
It was a “pretty sloppy” game played on a hard, bumpy pitch, Adams said.
Maycenvale were 1-0 up at halftime, thanks to a 30th-minute goal where the ball went back and forth “through a few legs” before being forced over the line.
Maycenvale's second goal, 60 minutes in, came at the end of a counter-attack.
“They knocked it long, one striker ran on to it, got to the byline and cut it back to the other striker, who hit it first time from about the penalty spot,” Adams said.
United's best on the day were central midfielder Malcolm Marfell, right centreback Jean-Charles Fixot and sweeper Kieran Venema.