Football: Second half gets Auckland City home

Auckland City moved to within two points of ASB Premiership leaders Team Wellington on Sunday. Photo / Getty Images.

Auckland City moved to within two points of ASB Premiership leaders Team Wellington on Sunday after three second half goals secured a 3-0 win over Hawke's Bay United at Bluewater Stadium in Napier.

Following the scoreless first period in which both sides had opportunities but could not convert, Emiliano Tade got Auckland City off the mark in the 58th minute from the penalty spot after David Browne had been brought down by Hawke's Bay 'keeper Josh Hill in the area.

The visitors doubled their lead 20 minutes later as Ivan Vicelich scored with his head for the second consecutive match while Sam Burfoot completed the job with his 80th minute strike beyond Hill after a typically patient build-up from Ramon Tribulietx's men.

Tribulietx said Sunday's effort showed his players are getting closer to being back in the swing of things in their league competition after their efforts internationally pre and post Christmas.

"I think it's a good result for us after a week of competition in New Zealand," Tribulietx said.

"We look like we're building our game back up and that's a good sign. The game was as we predicted, we had a lot of the ball and they were waiting in the middle third and trying to hurt us on the counter.

"But I think we controlled that and didn't really turn the ball over in the middle third and sooner or later we knew we were going to create the chances. We created a few decent chances in the first half and in the second half we finally capitalised. I'm very happy with the way we played."
Josh Hill makes a save in Sunday's ASB Premiership clash against Auckland City. Photo by Photosport.

Josh Hill makes a save in Sunday's ASB Premiership clash against Auckland City. Photo by Photosport.

The result sees Auckland City move to within two points of leaders Team Wellington with a game in hand but Tribulietx said his side remain focussed on the here and now rather than being caught up too much in the league standings at this stage of the season.

"We're not really looking at the ladder right now. We're happy with the way we are progressing and we are recovering our spirit. Next week is a different game and we're only halfway through the season and there's a lot of football to be played. Things can change a lot and we better not look to far ahead of us and concentrate on what's coming up next, which is next week."

Hawke's Bay United coach Brett Angell said the key factor in the result came in his side not being able to consistently maintain their possession phases.

"I think the disappointing thing is we probably turned over possession, on winning possession, far too easily and far too often," Angell said.

"In the final third, our decision making or our final pass either lacked accuracy or weight, or a bit of both. Therefore, we didn't really open the Auckland defense up as consistently as we would have wanted to."

Angell added that Sunday's clash - which they played without suspended leading scorer Ryan Tinsley - gives them a good indication of the level they need to get to in order to be making noise at the business end of the competition.

"They are the barometer, as [Team] Wellington appear to be, to be pushing into the top positions. Today we fell slightly short of that. It's a learning curve. Some of our players will be probably slightly disappointed with their consistent performance levels.

"It's a young group and sometimes their performance levels do go up and down. We had a suspension as well, it gets tested and Auckland tested it and unfortunately we couldn't quite maintain that quality of our performance level."