PREMIER SOCCER: Edwards happy to be out of firing line

HAMISH BIDWELL
There was no hiding in the Port Hill United clubrooms on Saturday night, but at least Nigel Edwards will be able to duck for cover this week.
Player-coach of Eskview United in the Homeworx Pacific Premiership, Edwards' team was pitted against the Plus Rehab Port Hill side of mate, and colleague at Star Foods, Tim Claudatos. But when the final score at Marewa Park read 5-1 in Claudatos' favour, it looked as though this morning's work place banter was going to be as one-sided as Saturday's result.
"No, well I'm lucky actually, because I'm not in this week," chuckled Edwards after the match.
"I've got two weeks off, so that's two weeks' respite before I go back and cop the abuse. No, credit to Port Hill, they played the ball very nicely along the deck, got on top of us early and didn't release the pressure.
"After last week's effort against (Napier City) Rovers (a 3-1 defeat) I thought we could pull something out of the bag, but we didn't. There's a few games that we we're targeting this season and this was one of them, but Port Hill wanted it more than we did.
"I still think we've got a few points to prove in the second round and I'll be working the boys very hard to try and make that point."
For Claudatos' part, it seems as though he was getting his shots in before the game was even played.
"Nigel actually asked me on Thursday if we were training and I said 'no, we've got an easy side on Saturday'," he joked.
"We hadn't gone into this game looking to win by a big margin, we just wanted to win by keeping our composure and keeping our shape.
"We would've liked to have kept a clean sheet, which would've been our first but, hey, we got the three points and that's two in a row."
Because of the first round of the Chatham Cup, only two Pacific Premiership matches were played on Saturday, with the second being between Western Rangers and Bluewater Napier Marist at St Leonards.
Five-one was again the final score, as Marist stealthily work their way into title contention.
"It was a good win and we played well, which I was pleased about, because it's always difficult to go over there and win," said Marist player-coach Darren Mason.
Even better, though, is the fact that Mason's team are starting to get the goals to match the quality of their football.
"We've done that quite well over the last couple of weeks, but we've got another big challenge ahead with Taradale to play this week. Scoring goals early relieves a lot of pressure and getting a couple in the first 20 minutes enabled us to relax and play football," Mason said.
"We're just looking to carry on quietly at the moment.
We've got Taradale and then we've got to go up to Gisborne a couple of times yet and there's Maycenvale to play again. But things are building fairly nicely."