Football: Win for Bay despite first-half shocker

Viktor Lekaj was one of three goal scorers for Hawke's Bay United in Saturday's win against the Phoenix Reserves in the capital. Photo / John Cowpland

From zeroes to heroes; from shot-shy to goal-high - Hawke's Bay United's monumental turnaround was delivered in just a few minutes as they twice came from a goal down to beat Wellington Phoenix Reserves 4-2 on Saturday and keep their ASB Premiership football play-off chances afloat.

The Bay were utterly dismal in the first half, and didn't have one decent shot on goal in the whole 45 minutes.

Whatever coach Brett Angell said to the team at halftime worked a treat, however, as the Bay were more creative in the first few minutes of the restart than they had been in the entire previous half.

A double from Sean Lovemore, a penalty from Ryan Tinsley and a strike from Viktor Lekaj ensured Angell went home from Petone's Memorial Park a happy man.

He wasn't that earlier in the afternoon.

"That first 45 minutes was the worst performance of the season. I told the boys that in the dressing room, and all credit to them - they have come out in the second half, and got an early goal. Sometimes it happens and all you can do is hope for a response, which we got," he said.

Rather than the choice language it's attempting to assume he adopted to gee up his troops, the coach said he used more constructive methods.

"We underperformed but it wasn't a time for throwing the teacups. It was a time to say, 'Look, you know you've not done well, now make amends'. Over the course of a season, 16 regular league games, I'll take one bad 45 minutes and that was the bad spell that we had."

For the opening 20 minutes Hawke's Bay misplaced passes, barely pressed and gave the ball away cheaply.

Within the first five minutes they were one down through Ruari Cahill-Fleury, when the Bay defence were daydreaming.

But on 51 minutes, Sean Lovemore capitalised on great movement from his teammates to slip the ball past a goalkeeper who wasn't sure whether to come out or stay in his area.

Nevertheless, the Phoenix second string, which comprised first-team challengers Josh Brindell-South and Alex Rufer, some youthful, raw talent and a couple of Team Wellington regulars, hit back on 64 minutes with Nathan Hailemariam having the easiest of tap-ins after Rufer's shot came off keeper Josh Hill.

This was the start of a magnificent three minutes with Hawke's Bay scoring twice; firstly just seconds after going 2-1 down, when Lekaj struck the ball between keeper Oliver Sail's legs. And less than a minute later Wade Randle was bundled down just inside the penalty box, and Ryan Tinsley tucked away the resulting penalty.

Lovemore notched his second when he got on the end of an excellent counter-attack after the Phoenix made a claim for a penalty that did look justified, bulleting the ball past the stopper.

It was little more than the striker deserved after an excellent performance, and he was probably the only player who may have avoided a rude awakening at halftime.

Hawke's Bay United 4 (Sean Lovemore 51st, 79th, Ryan Tinsley 65th (pen), Viktor Lekaj 64th), Wellington Phoenix 2 (Ruairi Cahill-Fleury 5th, Nathan Hailermariam 62nd). HT: Phoenix 1-0.