Football: Ngongotaha AFC still hunting first win

Ngongotaha players celebrate a goal. Photo / File

Have you ever sat an exam, spent hours filling it out and checking your answers, and felt a sense of accomplishment when you finished, only to turn it over and discover it was double sided?

That is a bit like how the Ngongotaha AFC football team's quest for a first win of the 2018 season has gone. They have played well in patches during this year's Northern Region Football League Division 2 competition and have put themselves into winning positions, only to fall at the final hurdle.

However, you get the feeling that first victory is just around the corner if they can pull it all together for 90 minutes.

On Anzac Day they fought hard for a nil-all draw away at Papakura City, earning their second competition point of the season which saw them climb briefly from the bottom of the ladder. However, a 3-4 loss at home, to fellow strugglers Onehunga Mangere United, three days later saw them fall back to the bottom.

This weekend Ngongotaha are back on the road as they take on seventh-placed Metro Football Club in Auckland today.Ngongotaha coach Ron Cane said the Papakura draw was "a good, solid 90-minute performance".

"We created, the same as they did, but I think we had the better of the game. I thought 'Great, that's a good point away from home, we can move on against Mangere'.

"But the wheels fell off again. We scored three good goals, but we conceded four. I sat in that dugout and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The wind and the rain was horrendous that day, but there were no excuses.

"We were down 3-2 at halftime and I said to the lads 'You've scored two good goals but you're fighting again, you need to try to calm down in front of goal. Josh O'Sullivan got his second goal to make it 3-3 but they got the winner. When you score three goals at home you expect to win," Cane said.

He hoped when the first victory finally materialised, it would give the players the confidence to go on a run of wins.

"Metro, our opposition this weekend, got a draw with the top side Takapuna, so that's not going to be an easy game either," he said.