Football: Bay Utd pay price for straying from script

Bay United goal scorer Alex Palezevic (white) out muscles Southern United player Danny Ledwith for possession at Sunnyvale Park, Dunedin, yesterday. Photo/Peter McIntosh, ODT

If soccer fans are looking for any excuses on why Hawke's Bay United then they are plain out of luck.

That's because Thirsty Whale Hawke's Bay United coach Brett Angell isn't about to give them any after his troops lost 2-1 in Dunedin yesterday.

"It was quite a poor performance today, individually and collectively, because we didn't do what we have been doing so we made life a lot more difficult for ourselves," Angell said as Southern United carried on their giant-killing ways to not only inflict the first loss on Bay United but to leapfrog them into fifth place on equal eight points of the ISPS Handa Premiership ladder after round five.

The visitors had struck in the 43rd minute through Alex Palezevic after an 11am kick off at Sunnyvale Park but the hosts equalised with a 71st-minute goal from Andrew Ridden before Garbhan Coughlan broke Bay hearts in the 90th.

Angell said the Bill Robertson-captained side didn't approach the match as they would have liked to but made it clear it had nothing to do with conditions, travel or early kick-off.

"I suppose we had four decent performances but this one was below our standards and, eventually, we managed to come away with nothing so I don't think we did enough to win a game of football."

He said physicality was a factor but Bay United simply had to match up to it rather than moan and groan about it.

The visitors had failed to bring the ball down enough and on the occasions they had they didn't do justice to it as they had done in previous encounters.

"It was a poor performance from minute one to minute 90 and we got nothing out of it because we didn't do anything to influence the game."

Angell wanted his players to show some consistency but instead they let the game stretch, thus losing their right to dictate terms so errors crept in through some poor decisions.

"Sometimes you get the feeling that you deserve to win because of what you've done but today we didn't get that feeling to win the game so it's slightly disappointing."

However, the Englishman said Bay United had to put that behind them to move on because it wasn't going to be any easier with a 2pm kick off away against powerhouses Auckland City this Saturday.

He said under performing was definitely a worry but revealed the team was mindful it was a wake-up call.