Football: Ngongotaha enjoy goal rampage

Ngongotaha AFC players celebrate the only goal of the game against Tauranga Boys' College yesterday at Stembridge Rd. Photo / Stephen Parker

Ngongotaha AFC ensured qualification for the Chatham Cup in style with a 17-0 thumping of Auckland's Colo Boys FC at Stembridge Rd.

In a game always destined to be something of a formality against a plucky but outclassed Sunday league side, the Villagers ended just four goals short of equalling the Chatham Cup's record victory score.

Ten different players made the scoresheet on Saturday, with 13 goals coming in the game's second half. Josh O'Sullivan and Luke Barker led the rampage by scoring four apiece.

Elsewhere on Saturday, Rotorua United chalked up their first win of the WaiBOP Premiership season with a 3-0 victory over Tauranga Boys' College. Goals from Brad Hill, Edouard Komon, and George Watson saw off the visitors at Neil Hunt Park.

After that defeat the Tauranga squad might have been happy to see the back of Rotorua. Any respite was short-lived: yesterday they were back in town for a rescheduled premiership clash at Stembridge Rd, where a 1-0 home victory capped off a successful Anzac weekend for Ngongotaha (and a miserable one for bottom-placed Tauranga).

"We're good enough to create chances in front of goal, so it's just a matter of putting them away," Ngongotaha AFC coach Shane Davis said yesterday.

He praised his team's work rate and lack of complacency in the routing of Colo Boys FC. "They [Ngongotaha] never took their foot off the pedal."

Describing the second-half onslaught in the cup qualifier as "just a matter of finding the net," Davis pointed out the scoreline would have been greater if his team had converted a number of first half chances.

The coach also singled out 16-year-old winger Josh McDougal, the squad's youngest member, for praise of his performance on Saturday.

The Villagers will have fond memories of the Chatham Cup after a fairytale run in last season's competition, when they reached the last 16. Davis, however, was quick to warn against thinking too far ahead.

"It's a knockout tournament, so you can't really tell. Anything can happen on the day."

Davis admitted his side "should have done better" in the 1-0 victory against Tauranga, citing tired legs from Saturday's game as a factor in yesterday's underwhelming display. But the coach welcomed another three premiership points.

Veteran Ngongotaha forward O'Sullivan told the Rotorua Daily Post his team had missed "a good 10 chances" in the first half against Colo Boys, and praised the opposition keeper for keeping so many out.

"The team is producing good chances so you need to be there to put them away," he said.

"It was only a matter of time before they sunk."

If the Ngongotaha players had scored a few of those chances, they could have made Chatham Cup history: four more goals would have equalled the record scores of 21-0 set by Metro FC in 1998 and Central United in 2005. Both of those whitewashes were inflicted on Auckland club Norwest United.

When asked about his team's chances for the season, O'Sullivan echoed the cautious words of his coach. "It sounds corny, but we're just taking it game by game. That was what did us well last season."