Wet weather halts Central games

With today's Central League games cancelled, Football Whanganui's Emily Mayhead, right, and her team will be highlighted for the big Sunday clash in the Women's Federation League.

The weather bomb of the lower North Island has put out Whanganui's travelling teams in Central League with both Lotto Federation League and Horizons Premiership games postponed today.

It is understood the GR Engineering Women's Federation League game scheduled for tomorrow will still be going ahead at Wembley Park, as Football Whanganui take on PN Marist Women's Reserves.

Marist have a 4-3-3 record from their games so far, while Football Whanganui picked up their first points in their last game on June 25, holding New Plymouth Girls High to a 0-0 draw.

Kickoff is 1pm.

While the Devon Homes Wanganui Athletic 1sts were on their bye week anyway, their clubmates GVCA Wanganui Athletic Reserves will miss today's home Premiership match with the PN Marist Reserves, while table-topping Big Orange Wanganui City 1sts were due to take on Massey Celtic down at Skoglund Park.

Athletic coach Jason King said the decision was made midweek to forego the Saturday games, due to the state of the council-owned grounds in Palmerston North, which would mean if games were played elsewhere as scheduled, the wider draw would have gaps to be filled with not many spare dates available.

"Because of the weather bomb that came through, the travel to and from the different places [is hard]," said King.

City coach Kelvin Francis said he was "gutted" on Friday.

"They pulled the pin yesterday, [Palmerston North] must be pretty wet."

While there are some blessings for City as defender Adrian Ngaau re-injured his calf at training while Josh Jonas has another weekend to rest his sore ankle, Francis was concerned the extra time extends the wait for the suspended Kyle Graham-Luke.

Handed a four-week suspension back in early June for the match with Feilding United, with a bye week and now postponed match, Graham-Luke will be facing over six weeks without a game.

"We're looking into it [with Central Football]. We're hoping for common sense, but it is what it is."

As of yesterday, Wembley Park in Whanganui was still all-go for local league matches this afternoon, which will include a cracking matchup between the undefeated Marist Celtic and City Hammers.

Athletic 1sts will resume their League play next weekend now back in third spot after New Plymouth Rangers had a successful 7.5 hour trip over to Gisborne last Sunday, beating the Thistle 3-2.

Still needing another make-up game between the sides, Rangers and Thistle just decided to make it winner-takes-all for six points, so the Taranaki team's victory shot them up to an 8-1-2 record ahead of Athletic (7-2-3).

"It's a little disappointing, because when we played Red Sox, and we were the only game that weekend, Rangers were supposed to play as well, but they said they couldn't get accommodation," said King.

Athletic had a now costly 0-0 draw with sixth-placed Red Sox, before they returned to Palmerston North to thump them 5-1 last weekend, which could also have been a double-points match.

"Parity would have been the same as what it was. It hurts even more at the moment," said King.