Inglewood's Dare Oil and Gas Recruitment won the Nimmo Cup soccer knockout game played on their home turf this weekend, beating Stratford senior men's 5-3 in a nailbiting penalty shoot-out following a 2-all tie at full time.
Having been in the finals twice in the last 10 years, eighth-placed Stratford knew they were in for a tough game against Inglewood, currently sixth on the ladder.
The Nimmo and Duff Rosebowl competition are the pinnacle of Taranaki football and always leads to a hard fought
competition.
This competition sees all teams competing above their usual playing level, says Stratford team manager Brent
Dodunski.
Inglewood, with the home advantage, brought the game to Stratford and Stratford soaked up a lot of the early pressure looking to pass the ball around the park.
Stratford took the lead after 30 minutes with a well-taken shot from their reliable Uruguayan striker Claudio Soto.
Ten minutes later Inglewood capitalised from a defensive error and leveled the score with a well-placed shot from Paul Spurdle.
With Stratford piling on the pressure late in the first half it was only a matter of time before they scored again.
Inglewood committed almost all of its players to defence, however, this led to the ball ricocheting off an Inglewood
player and Thiago Desouza from Stratford drilled the ball into the net.
The second half saw Inglewood attack from the outset and 15 minutes into it Inglewood won a corner and Wayne Gower climbed high with a direct header into the top right hand corner of the net.
With the scores level, neither team gave up.
Full time meant that extra time was played and after having played 120 minutes of football the result was still two all.
A penalty shootout was the next process and with some outstanding goalkeeping Inglewood became the victors.
Inglewood's player of the day was Brydan Wilkens and Stratford nominated their whole team - for not giving up.