Wairarapa United savour win

The relief on Wairarapa United faces at the game's end said it all about their 1-0 win over Napier City Rovers in the central league football match at Queen Elizabeth Park oval in Masterton yesterday.
Starting warm favourites after their upset 3-1 defeat of defending champions Olympic five days previously, Wairarapa United struggled to combat the "in your face" approach of a gritty NCR and could consider themselves fortunate to have come away with the maximum points.
Their finishing work consistently let the home team down. Several times during the 90 minutes they created prime scoring opportunities but it wasn't until the last couple of minutes that they finally got the ball into the back of the net courtesy of player-coach Adam Cowan.
Not long before that Scott Robson had missed a penalty after a NCR player was ruled to have played the man rather than the ball in front of his own goal, a decision made even worse for NCR when the player concerned hotly debated the call and was red-carded, leaving his team to play the final stages with just 10 men.
NCR will also look back on the match as one of lost chances. Three times they hit the posts only for the ball to rebound back into play and there were at least another couple of occasions when players were left clear with just Wairarapa United goalkeeper Matt Borren to beat and somehow managed to mess things up.
Borren was in outstanding form for Wairarapa United, making several critical saves and being fearless in his leaping to take the high cross. Also impressive with the solidness in defence was Nathan Cooksley, who pulled off several important interceptions through his astute reading of play and was totally committed on the tackle. Those were also attributes regularly displayed by the ever-reliable Waisake Sabatu and Scott Robson.
There was a frustrating lack of fluency in the Wairarapa United attack, although skipper Pita Rabo and Cowan always looked likely when the ball came their way. Black Caps pace bowler Adam Milne made his debut when he was subbed on after about an hour's play and showed enough deft touches to suggest he could push hard for a starting spot as the season progresses.
Wairarapa United will be back at Queen Elizabeth Park oval on Monday to play Petone, a team with which NCR drew 1-1 last weekend. Success there could see Wairarapa United elevate themselves to the top of the central league points table. Kick-off is at 2pm.