Football: Fury end weekend with nothing to show

AFC Fury defender Joe O'Donohue clears against Claudelands Rovers at Te Puna yesterday.

AFC Fury are quickly finding out that life in the Northern League Second Division this season is going to have as many setbacks as golden moments.

Fury dropped points to Oratia United away on Good Friday in a 3-2 defeat and yesterday, at their home park of Modcom Field in Te Puna, they lost 4-2 to Claudelands Rovers to have nothing to show from their Easter matches.

Two goals to Graham Kay had Fury 2-1 up midway through the first half but Claudelands quickly equalised to leave the game evenly shared at halftime. A scrappy second spell was set alight by a well-taken goal from Claudeland's young striker Jack Connor before the goal of the match of some quality from Darios Kabya clinched it for the Hamiltonians.

Fury's stand-in coach Dave Cook reiterated that "they have nothing to fear in this league" despite losing both games over the weekend.

"I thought, if we had got a third goal, we possibly would have won," he said.

"The game overall, well we are still settling on a combination.

"Like we had two different centre backs in today and we had players back who were not available Friday. We had a midfielder today (Juan Pablo Rosende) who played centre back on Friday because others weren't available.

"When this competition settles down to a once a week situation then I would expect the combinations to be better. But, at this stage, we don't know who are going to be the good teams in this league after only three games.

"(Claudelands) lost 4-0 in their first game and they won their next two. It will take a few games before you really know where you are."

What may need sorting quickly, if Fury are to be competitive consistently for the rest of the season, is a greater degree of physicality through the midfield and defence. Too many 50-50 balls were lost to the more determined Claudelands outfit.

Fury have a strong South American flavour to their playing roster, which means plenty of moments of high skill and, once the combinations Cook refers to are sorted out, then goals should not be a problem.

Just getting the defensive patterns ingrained will be the challenge.

* In Northern League First Division action yesterday, second placed Belvedere Tauranga City United travelled to Auckland to face Mangere United.

* Tauranga went 1-0 down after 10 minutes but then took control of the match with some quality finishing from Andrew Cooper, who scored twice, Campbell Higgins and Andrew Carter to nail a comfortably 4-1 victory. Tauranga City are unbeaten after three games of the new season.