Soccer: Striker Bevin plays key role in Rovers' upset win

NCR 2 Lower Hutt 0
Perfect day, perfect pitch and, if you are a Bluewater Napier City Rovers fan, then it's a treble - perfect outcome, too.
So what was the difference, you may well ask, in second last-placed Rovers' 2-0 upset victory over fifth-placed Lower Hutt City in yesterday's Central League football encounter in Napier?
If you were watching the coaches of the respective teams at Bluewater Stadium, Park Island, then chances are you were probably thrown off your scent.
While a fuming Hutt coach Brendan McIntyre wisely beat his troops to the changing room to cool off under the showers, it seems an elated Rovers coach Grant Hastings said his prayers in the bowels of the changing rooms with his men before darting back out to take a deep drag or two on a cigarette to soothe his jangled nerves.
Believe it or not, the difference in the game came down to a player from each side - Rovers striker Andy Bevin and roving Hutt winger Andrew Abba.
It was more what Bevin did in his return home from the Oceania World Under-20 qualifiers and what Abba didn't do for the Wellingtonians, if McIntyre's blueprint is anything to go by.
That is not to detract from the fact that only the naive would deny team efforts clinch victories or, conversely, the lack of it is a recipe for disaster.
After all, it was Rovers striker Stu Wilson who drove the stake into the Canaries' heart - not once but twice and No 2 memorably.
Hastings agreed they were getting better at the passing game as new people in foreign roles sought traction.
"No doubt people like Andy Bevin are giving you quality balls and targets although we got a little raggedy for a while in the second half," Hastings said, adding his men seemed more concerned about protecting their lead than playing.
He lauded substitute midfielder Luke Chapman for coming in late in the second half to inject some fresh impetus in the engine room.
The defenders - skipper Regan Cameron, Bill Robertson and Danny Wilson - were miserly in the territorial and possession stakes, thus depriving Lower Hutt decent scoring opportunities.
The Beefeaters regularly contributed to a warped structure in the visitors' efforts to play a constructive game, which they showed fleetingly in the opening 10 minutes and in patches in the second spell.
In fact, Bevin provided much-needed fluidity and vision in the front with his incisive runs and spurring triangular passages down the flanks.
Conversely Abba, a former Rovers and Hawke's Bay United player, wallowed in his individual brilliance, catching the dreaded "one-too-many" disease as he attempted to dribble past defenders when he simply needed to pass and move into a gap.
As Hastings said, the hosts' set-piece play with pinpoint passes had Lower Hutt on the back foot while goalkeeper Shaun Peta ensured the visitors didn't get their tails up when he parried centre-mid Andrew Coad's freekick over the wall off the left upright in the 73rd minute.
"It's not a bunker mentality at all but about putting yourself in areas where you can affect the game in and out of possession," Hastings explained.
Stu Wilson drew first blood against the run of play in just the fifth minute following a through ball from centre-mid Hamish Price on the left flank.
Wilson beat a defender, surged into the 18m box and planted it on the bottom right corner despite an outstretched goalkeeper, Fraser Stewart, getting his fingers on the ball.
Bevin, who three minutes later clipped the crossbar, dummied a cross from midfielder Sven Exeter in the 32nd minute but Wilson failed to pick the ball at point-blank range in front of goalmouth.
The Rovers held their 1-0 lead despite coming close to scoring again before the breather.
Lower Hutt's other scoring opportunity came in the 63rd minute when striker Ethan Galbraith laid a pass back to Abba at the edge of the 18m box.
The Solomon Islander drove the ball into Cameron's chest but keeper Peta got his mitts around the ensuing worm burner.
With perhaps the realisation the game wasn't in the bag at that stage, Bevin centred the ball in the 71st minute from far right to Stu Wilson, who brought it down from his chest, swivelled and slammed it into the top right-hand corner of the net as the Bluewater Stadium rejoiced in the 2-0 buffer.
Referee Conrad Dickenson-Burrows justifiably flashed yellow cards at Exeter, Josh Stevenson, Bill Robertson, and Lower Hutt pair of centreback Filip Soczynski and Biss.
In the 82nd minute, the Levin whistle blower walked off the pitch towards the bench and read the riot act to coach McIntyre: "Keep your mouth shut. I don't want to hear anything from you again."
While equable fans wouldn't begrudge him for erring, it seemed Dickenson-Burrows was overly protective in the contact department, almost to netball proportions.
McIntyre agreed, saying if ex-Liverpool striker-cum-coach Kenny Dalglish was on the park yesterday, one of the greatest footballers would have been reduced to the scrap heap of ineptness.
"He wouldn't have been able to play because he always used his bum to push defenders out of the way.
"There were too many stop starts today for two teams that like to play good football. It was frustrating but, to be fair, we didn't deserve to win," McIntyre said.
He put the first goal down to a goalkeeping error but conceded the second was sublime.
"I don't think we lacked structure but we didn't stick to the game plan," McIntyre lamented, adding the blueprint was to exploit Abba's pace.
"We got quite a bit of joy from it in the first 5 to 10 minutes and then we played too narrow and tried to whop things up to the goal rather then getting to good wide areas.
"If you look at Abba he's a little bit frustrating to coach sometimes but it's one of those things," he said, adding Abba was brought into a young side to perform certain tasks.
"On the evidence of today he wasn't doing that and that's disappointing because he's immensely talented," the Scotsman rightly pointed out, emphasising the loss of structure was often a by-product of Abba's reluctance to pass when the opportunities arose.
"If he's going to continue playing for us then he can't continue doing that. He's a great player, no doubt, but he's got to do things in the right areas," McIntyre said, suspecting the player didn't emulate his feat from the past two outings because he seemed to be trying to prove a point to his former club.
Former Bay centre-mid Tom Biss was predictably adept but, enigmatically, McIntyre didn't start ex-Bay United playmaker George Barbarouses even though the frantic pace seemed to be out of Jarrod Smith's league.
Ex-Rover and Lower Hutt assistant coach Peter Howe was a pillar of strength as sweeper.