NCR put Tawa out of misery

NCR 4 Tawa 1

Unless you are a hermit crab crawling out from under a rock, everyone knows what was at stake yesterday at Park Island, Napier.

Win their last Central League football game at home against Tawa AFC and Bluewater Napier City Rovers would have kept their dreams alive for a double as they prepare for the Chatham Cup (knockout) final against Wairarapa United in Palmerston North this Sunday.

Also on the line was an enviable one-loss record at Bluewater Stadium, including cup and league matches this winter.

For what it's worth, the Grant Hastings-coached Blues, albeit a second-string one, executed their task with aplomb, outplaying the visitors 4-1 on a day that offered ideal playing conditions.

Striker Stu Wilson nailed a hat-trick of goals with centreback Bill Robertson drawing first blood with a header from a set-piece move on the right flank in the sixth minute.

In sporting parlance, though, you can only control the controllables. Skipper Regan Cameron and his men could do nothing about the game played simultaneously in Wellington between league leaders Miramar Rangers and Wairarapa.

Locked 1-1 at halftime, the visitors snuck ahead 2-1 on resumption but the Rangers clawed their way back with a 3-2 victory to become the 2011 champions.

That dashed the Rovers' and Wairarapa's dreams of a cup and league double.

"You know what? If after five games you would have said we would have got this far then we would have bitten your head off. It was always going to be a long shot for us. We're just proud we have lost only one game at home all season, including Chatham Cup matches," Hastings said as his troops boast the best defence in the league in conceding only 19 goals with two games left to play in winter.

The Rangers are next, haemorrhaging 23 goals, and Wairarapa follow with 25.

All that aside, it wasn't like Tawa didn't have anything to play for yesterday.

The O'Brien Challenge Shield sat snugly on a chair in the stadium corridor and the Wellingtonians had made their intentions abundantly clear before the kick-off.

A victory over third-placed Rovers would have also given Tawa a fighting chance of leap-frogging Lower Hutt City in the mid-table jostle.

Besides, the red and gold were playing their last game with coach Richard Martin at the helm, bowing out after seven seasons.

Tawa did show some promise in bursts with Englishman Ben Edusei dictating play adroitly but, essentially, the visitors lacked firepower up front and tall timber among the Beefeaters to counter even an understrength Rovers.

Realistically, the hosts should have been at least 4-0 up in the first half alone as Tawa goalkeeper Lance Ramaekars thwarted predominantly Wilson and Fergus Neil in one-on-one situations as sitters went begging.

While the match had all the hallmarks of an end-of-season affair, the Rovers would be mindful that anything short of clinical against Wairarapa in the cup clash this Sunday will see them drowning their sorrows in their beers.

Yesterday, regular goalkeeper Shaun Peta was a spectator before leaving at halftime with the Karamu High School first XI side as coach in Palmy for a week-long tournament.

That gave youngster Matt Gould his first start, although he was primarily untested for a lion's share of the game with father Jonathan Gould back from Perth Glory briefly to watch him play.

"Matt's worked hard at training so he deserved his start and Shaun had a wee niggle for a while so it was good to give him a rest," Hastings said.

Midfielders Matt Hastings and Sven Exeter, as well as striker Andy Pickering, sat it out too, flirting with four yellow cards before the cup final.

"It was good because the young guys we stuck out there really stepped up today," he said, singling out striker Matt Single for holding the ball up and putting some well-timed lofty crosses that tested the Tawa defence.

Reilly O'Meagher, Nick Matheson and William Stanger, coming back from a lengthy injury spell, gave the likes of Josh Stevenson and Lee Jackson a rest.

"It shows we have a good squad here rather than just eight or nine good players," he said, exuding confidence in their young rather than expecting them to lurk in the shadows.

"Everyone's made a meaningful contribution this season and that's what you need if you want to be successful as a club."

Having the chance to potentially finish runners-up and no worse than third on the league table suggested the club was successful, he emphasised.

Wilson scored his first goal in the 29th minute, after a blunder from keeper Ramaekars, who lobbed his clearing kick to the striker about 30 out. Wilson drove it into the top left-hand corner as the gloveman was retreating.

In the 70th, midfielder Ben Edusei curled a ball into the goalmouth from a cornerkick but red shirts ambushed keeper Gould.

Centreback Danny Wilson repelled the first shot before midfielder Todd Painter poked the ensuing deflection into the net to reduce the deficit to 2-1.

But the visitors' joy was short-lived as, three minutes later, the Rovers went up 3-1 when Stu Wilson lured keeper Ramaekars out before crisply placing the ball past him in the bottom right corner.

Wilson's hat-trick goal came in the 90th minute, when he did justice to a project that Neil and Luke Chapman started in the engine room before pushing the ball into the 18m box.

Coach Martin said the Rovers created more opportunities and took them better than his troops.

"The second goal was pretty special and we had talked about set-piece play [first goal]," Martin said, adding the atrocious weather had hampered their training for a fortnight but it wasn't an excuse. "It's too hot for us every time we come up here," he joked before stressing they were a "$5 club, not a $100,000 one".

Martin, 46, will coach his son's junior team and play masters footy for Tawa.

For Miramar, Michael White scored twice and Dominic Rowe once, while Nathan Cooksley and Noboyushi Ishi got on the referee's card, too.