A week after the soaring heights of their dominant Chatham Cup quarterfinal victory, Wairarapa United were almost brought crashing back down to earth against lowly Maycenvale United on Sunday.
"It was probably one of the worst games we've played all season," United coach Phil Keinzley said yesterday.
"We were totally out of
shape for the first 25 minutes and we had no composure.
"We were just a bloody disaster."
Not that it told on the scoreline, with United going on to comfortably win the match 3-0 at Carterton's Howard Booth Park, with goals from Pita Rabo, Seule Soromon and Campbell Banks.
The result puts Wairarapa into second on the Central League table - ahead of Western Suburbs on goal difference - but still six points behind leaders Miramar who thrashed Tawa 5-2 on Saturday.
Keinzley said the Hastings-based Maycenvale had much the better of the opening quarter.
"Even though we talked about not taking the game for granted, I think we did that," he said.
Indeed, it wasn't until halfway through the first half that United began to play up to anything like their potential.
A piece of individual brilliance from Rabo put them 1-0 up, with the forward dancing through four of five Maycenvale defenders before scoring.
"That sort of settled the team down, and we got a bit of composure after that and managed to control the game," Keinzley said.
Seule Soromon then doubled the lead on 30 minutes, with substitute Campbell Banks adding a third with almost his first touch after coming on in the second spell.
It was always going to be tough to front up again after dismissing favourites Waitakare City 4-1 in their Chatham Cup quarterfinal football last Sunday, but Keinzley blamed himself as much as anyone for tinkering too much with the structure of the team this week.
"I probably made too many changes, so I have to put my hand up for that as well."
Standout performers on Sunday were Matt Borren in goal, who kept out a few early Maycenvale strikes, Scott Robson in defence, and Rabo and Soromon up front.
United now have to steel themselves for three tough away games in the Central League with Olympic first up on the weekend, Petone the week after that, before the Chatham Cup semifinal coming a week before the final game against Miramar.
Keinzley said that meant if his team made the Chatham Cup final, Miramar would not have a competitive game for the next five weeks.
