Soccer: Dale to fly Fed flag

Only one team from Hawke's Bay will fly the flag in this winter's seven-team Federation League.

Your Solutions Taradale AFC, with Chris McIvor as coach, will compete in the Palmerston North-heavy competition.

"We looked at an eight-team competition and that's what we managed to get," Central Football Eastern operations manager Phil Holt said last night as soccer kicks off in the region from this Saturday.

Wanganui Athletic withdrew at the eleventh hour, which "caused a bit of grief when we have to now play three rounds as opposed to two rounds".

The teams - Taradale, Wanganui City, Team Taranaki, Red Sox (Palmy North), Palmerston North Marist, North End (P Nth) and Feilding United - will play 18 games over 21 weeks with a bye each.

While at least another Bay club could have entered, Holt said teams here opted to take another season to build their strength and financial interests.

"There's a two-year moratorium on the Fed League so having one more team would have been great but next winter we could go up to a 10-team competition," Holt said.

The Fed League would provide teams with the opportunity to gauge their relative strengths against other teams in the Central region.

Napier City Rovers, who are Central League defending champions, have a development team but the pressure of travelling and further expenses are deterrents. Havelock North Wanderers, he said, looked most likely to field a team in the Fed League next year.

The Bay-based, eight-team Computercare Pacific Premiership will resume as normal with Team Gisborne, the defending champions, the only outsiders.

"It was a nine-team one last year but with one of the two Taradale teams going to the Fed League it's a perfect number."

Holt said Team Gisborne, a composite outfit, would have loved to relive their glory days of Gisborne City but it cost them $11,000 just to compete in the premiership last season.

"If they go to the Fed League then it'll cost them more," he said, revealing that coach Brett Derry, a teacher, had left because of a job transfer.

In the lower social grades, Holt lauded clubs for their help in building structure "without any arguments".

"We asked teams to step up and they did."

In the HB AppMed House women's competition, six teams will compete in division one with Havelock North dropping to the eight-team division two.

"It's a little disappointing because Havelock had a very strong youth team that won div two last year but it seems their players have left for other clubs," Holt said, adding coach Chase Arquette also left.