SOCCER: United woes don't corner Jenkins

HAMISH BIDWELL
As Hawke's Bay United lurched from one defeat to the next, you wondered what damage the results might be doing to the careers of its up-and-coming players.
Surely the likes of Sam Jenkins would need to abandon ship at some stage, or run the risk of never attracting the interest of an offshore club or university? In reality, it seems the reverse is true, with Jenkins attributing much of his recent selection in the New Zealand Under-20 team to the fact that he was playing in a dud team.
"It just depends which way you look at it," he explained yesterday.
"A lot of the guys I was up against (for Under-20 selection) didn't really play for their franchise teams, whereas I was getting 90 minutes nearly every week - even if it was in a team that was struggling.
"The other thing is that sometimes it's easier to stand out when you are in a team that isn't doing so well."
But while that may have helped Jenkins get as far as the final six-day selection camp, he still had plenty of work to do from there.
"We had 31 New Zealand-based players and nine from overseas universities all fighting to make an 18-man squad," he said.
"It was pretty tough and we obviously did all the fitness testing and had a couple of games. I was lucky enough to make it and now we're off to Australia for a three-test series in May and then later in the year we have a couple of trips to South America and Europe.
"From there we have the Oceania Qualification Series next January, up in Auckland, and hopefully on to the Under-20 World Cup in Canada in June 2007."
All of which means we're unlikely to see Jenkins turning out in the blue of Napier City Rovers during the rest of the Central League season, but he will be back on deck for Hawke's Bay United in next summer's New Zealand Football Championship.
"I'm definitely still looking at going to America and I'm talking to three or four colleges over there at the moment, but I want one more season in the NZFC before I go," the winger-cum-striker said.
"I've got all my academic side of things sorted out and now it's just a matter of putting a video together. One of the coaches I've been talking to is from Stanford and while he hasn't offered me a scholarship yet or anything, I'd really like to go there.
"It's on the West Coast, which has a nice climate, and it's a good soccer school."