Keinzley lets heart rule head

Wairarapa United coach Phil Keinzley admits to allowing the heart to over-rule the brain in deciding his team will play their Chatham Cup quarter-final match with Waitakere City this coming Sunday at Howard Booth Park in Carterton, rather than on an all-weather surface in Wellington.
"The heart said stay loyal to our supporters and keep the game here. The brain said we should be looking to move elsewhere, so the players could enjoy the best possible conditions ... and I suppose you can say the heart won," Keinzley said yesterday. "Obviously, it's probably not what the players want to hear but they'll just have to grin and bear it."
Once the decision was made to keep the game in Wairarapa, the next question was where to play it.
Initially it was to have been staged at the Colin Pugh Sports Bowl in Masterton but, after grave problems were experienced with the facilities for the central league fixture with Western Suburbs last Sunday week, questions arose over it being a viable option.
And the chances of the Sports Bowl being used became virtually non-existent when the playing surface was seriously damaged by vandalism over the weekend.
Keinzley concedes he was under pressure from some of his players to transfer the match to an all-weather surface in Wellington, simply because there were no grounds in Wairarapa up to scratch for a game of its magnitude.
"I could see where they were coming from. We've had visiting teams all season taking the mickey out of us over the condition of our grounds," Keinzley said. "Sometimes you wonder whether the councils understand how bad things are in that respect. It's a real problem for football right now."
Keinzley's decision to go with Howard Booth Park came after Wairarapa United scored a 3-0 win over Tawa in a match played there on Sunday.
To even the uneducated eye, the grass was longer than ideal and the ground looked badly in need of a roll, but Keinzley is hopeful any improvement work necessary will be done over the next few days.
"Nobody is saying it is ideal but it is the best ground available and we are going with it," he said.
Keinzley was "pretty happy" with Wairarapa United's effort in the Tawa match, although he would have been even more satisfied had his side taken full advantage of their scoring chances.
"We did a lot of good work creating opportunities to score but the finishing wasn't always up to scratch. We probably should have scored at least another two or three goals," he said.
Selecting his starting line-up for the Chatham Cup quarter-final will not be too much of a head scratcher for Keinzley as, with Miroslav Tvaroh overseas, Adam Milne on cricket duty and Martin Pereyra recovering from injury, his squad is down to just 12 players.
Adam Cowan and Scott Robson both missed the Tawa match but have now served their one-game suspension for receiving five yellow cards. They will be back on deck, with Cowan likely to join Seule Soromon up front and Robson coming into the defence.