Wairarapa United seek to spring surprise

Wairarapa United are hoping the element of surprise will help them continue their golden run in this season's Chatham Cup national knockout soccer competition when they play Palmerston North End at Palmerston North on a date still to be confirmed.
Upset wins over higher-graded central league sides Stop Out last month and Wellington United on Monday have catapulted Wairarapa United into the fourth round of the Cup, the furthest any team from Wairarapa has gone in this particular series.
And manager Phil Keinzley is delighted their next encounter will be against opposition which will probably know little, or nothing, about their individual or collective strengths.
"We didn't want to be drawn against a Wellington club because everyone down there now knows what we are capable of," Keinzley said.
"But hopefully they (Palmerston North End) won't have done their homework and we'll be able sneak up on them."
As it happens PNE should, on paper at least, be the weakest side Wairarapa United have met in this season's Cup matches thus far as they currently lie second in the Western premiership, a competition about equal in strength to that of Capital premier division where Wairarapa United are also placed second at the present time.
But Keinzley doesn't see their grading as necessarily a good thing. "Obviously they have knocked off some good teams too so they'll be full of confidence, won't they," he said.
While delighted with his side's latest 2-0 Cup win over Wellington United Keinzley said there was a downside to the victory.
This revolved around possible distractions to their main objective for 2007, winning the Capital premier division competition.
Presently they are in catch up mode, six points ? or one win and a draw ? in arrears of leaders Petone.
"The league title is still very much the big aim and that's where we need the focus of the players to be," he said.
"It's nice to still be alive in the Cup but it's secondary to the league, no question of that."
Keinzley said Wairarapa United had gone into Monday's encounter with Wellington United intent on making a start strong enough to upset their opponent's composure and structure.
"We needed to impress upon them that nothing would come easy and I think we managed to do that," he said.
"We got them on the back foot early on and they struggled to get any rhythm into their game after that."
Keinzley was especially impressed with the dominance achieved by his side in midfield despite the fact Wellington United utilised a format which had them with five players there compared to Wairarapa United's four.
"Controlling the midfield is so crucial in matches like this and that was probably the main factor in the win for us," he said.
"We looked after own ball well and picked up a fair share of theirs through aggressive defence ? again it was just what we needed to do."
Keinzley was pleased too with the thrust shown by Wairarapa United on attack although he conceded that two or three goals had probably gone begging through poor finishing.
"They (Wellington United) only had a couple of really good scoring chances while we must have had six or seven.
"Getting two goals was pleasing but we should have had more," he said.
Whether gun forward Pita Rabo will be available for Wairarapa United's next premier division competition game against Western Suburbs this coming Saturday was very much up in the air with Rabo still battling a leg injury suffered in Monday's match.
However, the news was better about the versatile Andy Robertson who also took a blow to the leg in that game but who seemed sure to be available for Saturday's game.