United win, but at a cost

The loss of inspirational skipper Pita Rabo with a suspected broken collarbone took some of the gloss of Wairarapa United's gutsy 3-2 win over Maycenvale United in their return central league playoff soccer match in Hastings on Saturday.
The victory gave Wairarapa United a decisive 7-2 advantage in the home and away series to decide which of the two sides would go forward to the two promotion-relegation matches against the bottom-placed side in the 2008 central league, Stop Out of Wellington.
It followed a 4-0 win to Wairarapa United at the Pugh Sports Bowl in Masterton the previous weekend.
Whether Rabo's injury, which occurred early in Saturday's encounter, will keep him out of the first of the two matches against Stop Out at the Pugh Sports Bowl again next weekend won't be known for another couple of days but Wairarapa United coach Phil Keinzley is not counting on a favourable medical assessment.
"It did not look good, right now I would say he has no more than a 10 per cent chance of being right," Keinzley said yesterday. "But he's a tough bugger so you never know, we'll just wait and see what happens in the next 48 hours or so."
Keinzley said Wairarapa United took all of the first half to show anything like their best form in the Hastings match.
As expected Maycenvale United came out firing and while they strung some fine attacking movements together Keinzley believes they were helped by some nervous Wairarapa United play.
"I think the importance of the game got to some of our players, they weren't quite as composed as they needed to be, "he said. "The idea was for us to attack but we ended up playing more conservatively than we wanted to do."
Wairarapa United did, however, open the scoring with striker Seule Soromon finding the net somewhat against the run of play. However, Maycenvale United struck back with a goal scored while Rabo was being attended to and Wairarapa United was down to 10 men and they made it 2-1 when after a succession of corners they capitalised on some messy Wairarapa United defence.
Keinzley admits to thinking his side could be in trouble at this stage because the more Maycenvale United attacked the more their confidence grew but then came a welcome stroke of good fortune, a high kick in by Andy Robertson creating confusion in the home team's defence and the ball ending up in the back of their net. At halftime then it was 2-2.
The discussions in the Wairarapa United camp over the break revolved around the importance of playing their normal attacking style of soccer in the second spell, and Keinzley was delighted with the way they responded to that call.
"We were a completely different team, there was a lot more confidence there," he said. "We actually started to take the game to them for a change and that was exactly what we needed to do."
It was appropriate that the only goal of the second half should be scored by Soromon as Keinzley considers the Vanuatu international produced his best 45 minutes of the entire season, and that really is saying something for he has been an outstanding performer on a regular basis.
"He was electric, absolutely electric," Keinzley said of Soromon. "He tormented their defence big time, they had a hell of job trying to contain him."
Also impressive for Wairarapa United in an attacking sense were Anton Ross and Rathkeale College student Kota Maeno, who partnered Soromon in the striking role, while Miriek Tvaroh and Paul Gregory who replaced Rabo were grand value in the midfield.