United hope for good local support

Wairarapa United are still hopeful of drawing a good-sized crowd to their vital Capital Soccer premier division match with Miramar Rangers at the Pugh Sports Bowl tomorrow.
The rule of thumb for Wairarapa United's home games this season has been to play them on Sundays so as to enable the wider soccer community to watch the action but tomorrow's game is a very different kettle of fish with normal club matches being played around the same time.
Wairarapa United coach Phil Keinzley is optimistic, however, that with his team sitting second on the premier division points table, just one point behind Island Bay United and with a game in hand, the local sporting fraternity not just soccer will choose them as the best viewing option.
"We'd like to think we have done enough to keep people interested," he said. "We certainly don't under-estimate the importance of having a vocal crowd behind us, it can make all the difference in a close game."
The last time Wairarapa United and Miramar Rangers met the locals won comfortably enough but Keinzley says Miramar Rangers have improved "a ton" since then and consequently a much closer contest was being anticipated on this occasion.
"They have had a good run of form and are the sort of team who tends to rise to the big occasion," Keinzley said of Miramar Rangers. "They would love to knock us off, no question of that."
To prevent that happening Keinzley believes Wairarapa United will have to show the same resolve as they did in their 1-0 victory over Tawa last weekend. That game was played under ground conditions more akin to a ploughed paddock than a soccer pitch and they turned the match into a battle of attrition, a situation with which Wairarapa United coped better than their opposition.
The expectation that Miramar Rangers will place the emphasise on an attacking style of play has prompted Keinzley to bring the hard-nosed Guiseppe Cagliari off the reserve bench and into the midfield.
He is one of the team's most assertive defenders and will be given the job of marking of marking Miramar Rangers's danger man Tim Butterfield, something Cagliari has handled with distinction in the past.
Worth noting here is that if Wairarapa United win the premier division title it does guarantee them entry into next season's central league competition.
For that to happen they would then have to beat the top central region premier division side (Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu and Taranaki) to earn the right to play the bottom central league team in a promotion-relegation fixture.
Highlight of Knockout Cup competition matches on the local inter-club scene last weekend was the 11-1 thumping Trevs Sports Masterton gave Farmlands Masterton Presidents. The other two games were close affairs, Sports Arena Douglas Villa beating Carterton Wanderers 4-3 and McAuleys Masterton beating Carterton Skulls, also 4-3.
It's back to normal competition games tomorrow and the draw is.-
DIVISION ONE: McAuleys Masterton v Trevs Sports Masterton at Hullena Park at 2.30pm, Featherston v Carterton Wanderers at Greytown Memorial Park at 2.30pm, Wairarapa College v Sports Arena Douglas Villa at Wairarapa College at 2.30pm.
DIVISION TWO: Carterton Redbacks v Carterton Casuals at Howard Booth Park at 1.30pm, Douglas Villa Magpies v Evergreens at Park Sports 2 at 12.30pm, Carterton Skulls v Masterton Presidents at Howard Booth Park at 12.30pm.
The death of legendary New Zealand soccer administrator Charlie Dempsey this week was greeted with sadness by the Wairarapa soccer community with many recalling that Dempsey had visited the Wairarapa while the boss man of the code, and impressed hugely with his enthusiasm to grow the sport in the smaller regions.