By BOB PEARCE
For 55 minutes, East Auckland's debut in the national soccer league was the kind of thing dreams are made of.
The weather was brilliant, the crowd of close to 2000 was hundreds more than Mt Wellington have drawn to Bill McKinlay Park in recent years and - most
importantly - the home team were leading North Shore 2-0.
But sporting dreams can quickly turn into nightmares and, while Easts avoided that, they would have been disappointed with their 2-2 draw.
It had all started so well.
Within 67s they had taken the lead. Nik Viljoen swung a cross from the left across the face of goal and the ball went into the net off a defender.
Nineteen minutes later it was 2-0. This time Viljoen fastened on to a poor clearance and from 30m rifled a left-foot shot past Mark Fulcher.
Easts were dominating the midfield with Paul Bunbury and Hoani Edwards and stretching the Shore defence with wide runs from Viljoen and Stu Roberts.
But they failed to make the most of their territorial advantage and Heath McCormack and Roberts were both guilty of wasting good chances.
Shore, with the advantage of the breeze, began to string some passes together after the break.
But it was a piece of stupidity by Easts' defender Paul Stevens which turned the tide.
He brought down Leigh Kenyon with a wild tackle and Tim Stevens scored from the penalty spot.
Shore gained new life and it took a great save by Sean Dowling to keep out a Stu Bola header in the 61st minute.
From the resulting corner Stephen Old was just wide with a powerful header.
The equaliser came in the 82nd minute after a period of Shore pressure. Phil Porteous, a second-half substitute, fired a powerful low shot from the edge of the penalty area and it went in off a defender.
In Wellington the defending champions, Miramar, were quickly into their stride with a 5-1 defeat of Canterbury with goals to Brian and Graeme Little, Geoff Brown, Tariq Imam and Shaun Easthope. Ben Sigmund scored for Canterbury.
In Dunedin, Central led Caversham 1-0 at halftime thanks to a Daniel Koprivcic goal but Jesse Jones snatched the draw with two minutes to go.
The other Otago team, Dunedin Tech, travelled to Tauranga were they were beaten 2-0. Jeremy Field and Nathan Fry were the scorers.
Manawatu lived up to their pre-season form by beating Napier 2-0.
By BOB PEARCE
For 55 minutes, East Auckland's debut in the national soccer league was the kind of thing dreams are made of.
The weather was brilliant, the crowd of close to 2000 was hundreds more than Mt Wellington have drawn to Bill McKinlay Park in recent years and - most
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