A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Football was never meant to be like this.
Players never got sick. They never went into isolation. They went to training with a cold and if they passed it on, too bad.
Feeling a bit under the weather? Put on another layer and sweat it out.
Gisborne Thistle coach Garrett Blair must look back wistfully to those days.
He was in Covid-enforced isolation himself this week. Assistant coach Fletcher Stewart-Hill took training, and they’ve been in constant contact . . . the virus will not win.
It’s making a good fist of being an almighty nuisance though.
Coaching staff and players are smarting over the 6-0 defeat inflicted on ALH Gisborne Thistle by Napier City Rovers Feds in Hawke’s Bay last Saturday.
Tomorrow at 2.30pm the Jags play Massey University, who are third in the eight-team Central Federation League, with five wins, a draw and three losses from their nine games.
Thistle have one win and eight losses.
Jarom Brouwer is still unavailable because of work-related commitments, but is expected back next week. They’ve missed him. Matt McVey is back, though, and should add some
midfield drive.
Missing tomorrow will be Daniel Venema, who was sent off for a deliberate handball to stop a goal. His brother Kieran, who played alongside him in the back four last week, will also be missing, laid low with Covid.
Thistle’s difficulty in scoring has been a feature of their season so far, and it has put added pressure on the defence to stem the flow of goals conceded.
With the Venema brothers out, and Kuba Jerabek still injured, the make-up of the backline starts to look different.
Although decisions on team selection depend on how players came through training last night, Blair has some ideas on how to combat the Massey threat and provide a few scoring opportunities.
Mitchell Stewart-Hill will likely be in goal but the back four will have a new look.
Last night, Blair was leaning towards a back four of fullbacks Andre Riley on the right and Sam Patterson on the left, and centrebacks Ryan Anderson and Alex Davies. That leaves out veteran defender Ander Batarrita, but he has the versatility, skill and football nous to be useful all over the pitch. He could yet feature in this game.
Blair was considering adopting a playing system of 4-2-2-2. The defensive duo would be Nick Land and Ash McMillan, while the two in front would be Cory Thomson and McVey.
That left the forward strike force, and the possible introduction up front of Raydon Semmens, a player with Central League and Capital Premier League experience.
He could be partnered with either Travis White or Leo Maisey. One of them would be on the subs’ bench, and the likes of Reece Brew and PJ Goodlett could be recruited for bench duty after the Reserves’ Pacific Premiership game against Western Rangers.
Players of note in the Massey team include former Gisborne Thistle centreback George Andrew, who plays in midfield these days, and strikers Benjamin Mori and Zach Farmer, who have scored five and four league goals respectively this season.
Massey head coach Donald Piper is also chief operations manager of Central Football.
The curtain-raiser on Childers Road Reserve No.1 will be the Pacific Premiership match between ALH Thistle Reserves and Hastings team Western Rangers. It starts at 12.30pm.
Thistle Reserves have had a lot of trouble getting a team together in recent weeks but have had a couple of good draws lately, thanks largely to the willingness of obliging veterans to turn out to help the developing players.