`We should have won'

HAMISH BIDWELL
The record will show that Hawke's Bay United lost Saturday's New Zealand Football Championship match against Canterbury United 2-1.
In truth, they should have won it 10-0 and the realisation tore at head coach Jonathan Gould.
"Some of the stuff we played, was the best stuff we've played this season, but we've given them three points. With the chances we had, there's no way we should have come out of that game with a loss," said Gould.
"Physically, I couldn't ask for any more than what I got from them today, but what you do ask from them is to be a little more intelligent and to start actually talking to each other."
Because their failure to do that was the losing of the match. If you're honest, Canterbury didn't create a single chance during the match. All three shots on goal came from defensive howlers, with Solomon Islands international Henry Fa'arodo converting two and Scott Dunn doing well to save the other.
"We just have to stop conceding silly goals, because it happens too often here," said Gould.
"You need to be no-nonsense and you need to think and you need to realise that sometimes the best place for it (the ball) is in the stands."
Which is where, you hope, either Dean Johnson or Ian Hogg would put the ball, if they could re-live the 62nd minute.
Be it Hawke's Bay United, or its doppelganger Napier City Rovers, it was the kind of calamitous moment that Charlie Howe, Roy Stanger, Perry Cotton and Chris Shakeshaft became all too familiar with in the last couple of the years.
An innocuous long ball, one opposition striker, two defenders, indecision and then blushes and head scratching all round, as the ball somehow finds it way into the net.
If you hadn't seen it so many times before, you'd scarcely have been able to believe it.
So, there we were, with Hawke's Bay 2-0 down and with less than half an hour to play. Hogg pulled one back shortly after and while there continued to be a string of chances, the equaliser just wouldn't go in.
Mind you, it should have been 1-all on 40 minutes, when Phil Edginton turned minutes of sustained pressure into what looked like a clear goal. The big defender rose to meet a Graham Fyfe cross, with his head meeting the ball a split second before it reached Canterbury keeper Adam Highfield's hands.
Highfield did his best, but couldn't hold it, and the ball deflected from him and into the goal. Only referee Michael Hester decided that the keeper had dropped it because Edginton had fouled him and a legitimate goal was ruled out.
We'll never know what may have happened if the goal had been awarded. What we can be sure of is that Hawke's Bay were the better team and if you take out two moments of poor defending, people would have walked away from Bluewater Stadium feeling pleased with what they saw from their team. So is that how Gould sees it?
"No. I don't feel like that today and I won't feel like that on Monday, either. Sometimes you can see things objectively on a Monday, but I don't think this feeling will change - regardless of the performance. If you play like that and have that many chances, you should get something out of it, because you should be able to be more resolute in the other areas of the field."