Pace, penetration the keys - and Gisborne United have plenty of that

SLIDING TACKLE: Gisborne United right-winger Sam Royston goes flying as Havelock North Wanderers leftback Mason Cook makes a sliding tackle in their Pacific Premiership football match at Harry Barker Reserve on Saturday. United won the game 6-0. Pictures by Paul Rickard

Speed — if you haven’t got it, it’s the hardest thing in football to combat.

Gisborne United have it all over the park . . . not in every position, but in places where it can affect what happens anywhere on the field.

They also have a few who can play a bit, and some of them are fast as well.

So the Heavy Equipment Services United victory over Havelock North Wanderers Seconds — 6-0 at Harry Barker Reserve on Saturday — did not go against form. But it still had plenty to offer spectators.

Striker Josh Adams scored a hat-trick — his team’s fourth, fifth and sixth goals — in the space of 15 minutes.

Right-winger Sam Royston scored two opportunist goals, in the 40th and 51st minutes.

And left-winger Josh Harris opened the scoring in the third minute with a goal that settled the nerves of players and supporters.

United attacked down their right flank and the ball was played into the penalty area.

Josh Adams hit a first-time shot that was parried by goalkeeper Oscar Field, but only as far as Harris, lurking beyond the far post, and his finish was clinical.

Five minutes later, Harris had the ball in the net again after he latched on to a delicate chip over the defence from central midfielder Corey Adams, but the flag was up for offside.

Harris was through again on the left in the 12th minute and hit the inside of the far post. The ball bounced back into the goalmouth and was cleared.

All of this happened while Havelock North still had 11 men on the field. That changed in the 23rd minute, when Josh Adams was haring towards goal and had his heels clipped just outside the penalty area by chasing leftback Mason Cook.

It was a definite scoring chance and no one was between Adams and the goalkeeper, so referee Chris Niven had no option but to send Cook off.

With three-quarters of the game still to go, that red card made a tough job almost impossible. Nothing came of the free kick, but Harris and Josh Adams, in particular, continued to break through Havelock North’s defensive line with alarming ease.

The saving grace for Wanderers was that, once beaten, their defenders chased back instantly, and that pressure stopped the score from ballooning out even further than it eventually did.

Havelock North are a young team under the guidance of coach Dion Adams, who in his younger days gave defences the heebie-jeebies with his nose for goals. Now, at 44, he fills in at the back when required.

His side played good football and contested the loose ball with determination.

Among those of the younger brigade to shine were rightback Rubem Demarchi, leftback Cook (for the 22 minutes he was on the field), right midfielder Heith Adams (son of the coach), skipper and central midfielder Reuben Crossland and left-winger Finn Baragwanath.

Adams played a terrier-like game on the flank and showed some nice touches, Crossland — along with his more experienced central midfield partner Oskar Sherratt — was in the thick of the action, and Baragwanath was fast and elusive with a powerful shot to boot.

Young goalkeeper Field could be faulted for only the last goal (in the 80th minute), and that was more a comedy of errors. He went to throw the ball to a teammate but checked his throw, though not enough to stop the ball leaving his hand. In the confusion, Josh Adams stabbed the ball into the empty net. Other than that, Field could do little about any of the United goals, and he prevented a good few besides.

The job of this Wanderers side is to nurture future first-team players. These youngsters are held together by a few experienced players of the right type.

Centreback Laurent Larcelet couldn’t match the speed of the United frontrunners, but his timely interceptions and dogged pursuit of runaway strikers kept those around him on their toes.

For the second half, he was joined at the back by 46-year-old Nick Lucas, who has graced national league, central league and Pacific Premiership fields for well over 20 years, and baffled more than a few opponents with his skill and artistry in midfield or up front.

It was good to see him out there using his football smarts to try to take the edge off a razor-sharp United attack.

Midfielder Sherratt and striker Christian Fuller were also steadying influences on the younger team members.

In contrast, United are a side made up mainly of players in their prime or approaching it, with a sprinkling of young talent to keep the team moving forward.

One of the youngsters, Royston, put United two up in the 40th minute. Sweeper Kieran Higham clipped a perfectly weighted ball over the top for Josh Adams to run on to. Larcelet got back to bar the way but Adams found room for a shot. Field parried the ball away to Royston, whose shot crossed the line before Field could claw it back.

United’s young goalkeeper Seth Piper did not have much to do but he had to look smart to keep his side’s goals-against tally at zero.

In the 43rd minute, Baragwanath cut in on a run that wrongfooted several United players and let fly with a shot that Piper did well to get a hand to, down low to his right.

United’s third goal was simple but well-executed. Rightback Adam Simpson — a fleetfooted defender with a steady game — looked to have overhit a diagonal ball into the Wanderers penalty area.

But Harris got to the ball and turned it back into the goalmouth, where Royston’s first-time shot from eight metres gave the keeper no chance.

At the other end, Baragwanath’s 20m shot brought a fine save from Piper in the 65th minute, then United counter-attacked and Corey Adams fed his younger brother Josh for a left-foot finish from 12 metres in the 66th minute.

Josh Adams got his second goal in the 77th minute, when the ball was cut back from the left for him to hit a first-time left-foot shot — from level with the near post, 10 metres out — into the far corner.

While the front three were the stars for United, midfielders Corey Adams, James Bristow and skipper Dane Thompson did the donkey work to keep them supplied with good ball while forming a barrier in front of their own back four.

Fullbacks Malcolm Marfell and Simpson and central defenders Mal Scammell and Higham were employed mainly in tidying-up operations.

Havelock North struggled to mount sustained pressure, and being a man down didn’t help.

United player-coach Kieran Venema said he was disappointed in his side’s first-half performance. They didn’t take control of the game and play was scrappy.

He had asked Corey Adams to play further forward than he had been, but at halftime Venema told him to go back to his usual game, and things improved.

“I love the way we counter-attack, but I don’t want that to be our only way of playing,” Venema said.

“I want us to be able to slow the game down, as we did in small parts of this match. Other than that, you can’t fault a 6-0 win, and I’m happy to have two clean sheets in two games.”

United sit second in the eight-team league with a game in hand on the teams around them. On Saturday they play third-placed Port Hill in Gisborne.

Leftback Jake Robertson, who came on for Harris midway through the second half, had to be helped from the field after a heavy tackle and could be in doubt for the Port Hill match.

The game was played in good spirit. Apart from the red card he showed to Havelock North’s Cook, referee Niven showed the yellow card to Sherratt of Havelock North and Harris of United.