THINGS didn't go quite to plan for Wanganui Athletic at the weekend with both of their premier teams suffering losses on the road in the Lotto Federation League and Western Premiership competitions.
It was a long way to go for Devon Homes Wanganui Athletic to come home completely empty handed, with their trip to Napier to play Port Hill United resulting in a 3-0 loss.
The time on the road seemed to take its toll on the Reds, as they were unable to gain a proper hold on the match and break down Port Hill's defences enough to put away the necessary goals in the back of the net. If it wasn't for the outstanding effort of Athletic's imported goalkeeper Matt Calvert, the score could have easily ballooned into more. Calvert has been a major piece in the puzzle leading to the handbrake slowly being applied to the Red's run of heavy losses, with his communication skills and leadership being critical to those efforts.
But the undeniable fact still remains that although they are starting to show improvement, Athletic's first team are still firmly rooted to the bottom of the table, and with even their nearest opposition Massey University sitting on seven points, there is still a long way to go and time is running out.
With Massey being hosted at Wembley Park this weekend by the Athletic firsts, this might be the chance to wake up from the coma, and close the gap between the two teams in the fight to avoid the wooden spoon.
In continuing the unfortunate run of results for those wearing red, the Athletic Reserves dumped whatever momentum they had built from the previous weekend's victory by capitulating in their fixture against North End to the tune of a 8-1 loss.
It seems for the Reserves to be a recurring theme - just as they start to gain some go forward and show some ability to claim results, they suffer a heavy loss which threatens to spoil all of their hard work and forces them back into the recovery mode, starting all over again.
In a small reward for the team, Sam Connelly notched up his second goal for the season, but it was still not enough to fire any sort of response from his team which would allow them to get themselves back into the game.
While the first half for the Reserves was a poor showing of what they're all about by conceeding seven goals, the second half saw them shake things up and start to put on a better performance, more akin to the type of football they have played in recent weeks.
This turnaround of mentality saw the brakes applied in the match, with North End only picking up the one goal in the second half to add to their total, but showing when the Reserves put their mind and mentality to it they can deliver the right work rate required to get results.
Saturday's game marked the end of the first round of play in the Western Premiership, so the Reserves march back to Skoglund next weekend to aim to dispel the demons of the 10-0 loss of their debut game in the competition against the Red Sox Manawatu A's.