Horowhenua College soccer team's scoring blitz at weekend games

Horowhenua College under 14 player Trey Kotua scored eight goals in his sides 29-0 win against Feilding High School at the weekend.

You have to feel sorry for anyone who wears the goalkeeping gloves in the Horowhenua College under-14 soccer team.

When your side has scored 63 unanswered goals in four games so far this season, the chances are the goalkeeper could go home without ever touching the ball.

In their latest match at the weekend Horowhenua College beat Feilding High School 29-0 in the division two match at Donnelly Park. In a 60-minute game, that's almost one goal every two minutes.

Considering the action was played mainly in the opposition territory, it was a lonely time for the Horowhenua goalkeeper.

Horowhenua coach Stephen James rotated the goal-keeping duties so that everyone could see a slice of the action. He said the goalkeepers were largely unemployed in every game so far.

"To be fair, they haven't had to save anything," he said.

To make the contest more even, James offered the opposition coach an opportunity to put more players on the pitch. The score was 12-0 at halftime and the match was in danger of losing shape.

"Sometimes when the game goes like that there is a chance they could lose their structure and we wanted to carry on with our positioning and passing," he said.

Trey Kotua scored eight goals at the weekend, while Toby James scored seven goals. Their lowest score to date was 7-0.

The Horowhenua under 14 soccer team scored another goal in their weekend match against Feilding High School. They won 29-0.

The team was mostly made up of year 9 students, but also have two promising year 8 students that were yet to attend college.

James is now advocating the introduction of a grading day at the beginning of each season that could assess the strengths of each side and have teams put in a more appropriate playing division to ensure that competition was more even.

*Emily Snell, a Horowhenua College student, is on work experience at the Horowhenua Chronicle this week.