Villagers dominate in Chatham Cup match

Ngongotaha players celebrate one of their goals during their 5-1 win Chatham Cup win over Beachlands Maraetai. PHOTO/BEN FRASER

"C'mon, we're better than this," yelled Ngongotaha AFC's Conor Hinz midway through the first half of today's Chatham Cup game at Stembridge Rd.

As it happened, they were, and ultimately won the game 5-1. But at that point, his frustrations came, not from the home side's inability to create, more their inability to score - and to having gone a goal behind to visitors Beachlands Maraetai, who play in the AFF/NFF conference, a few minutes earlier.

The Villagers had dominated up to that point, with long balls finding Mitch Miller who had handed a guilt-edged opportunity to Yamil Casas, who shot wide, then decided to take matters into his own hands only to hit the side netting.

Alexi Pinto's long-range effort brought the first save from Beachlands' keeper, Johannes Busser, and Luke Barker's headed effort was also close, as Beachlands were given little option than to absorb the pressure.

Despite the dominance, it was the visitors who were first to score when Nicholas Reid nipped in behind the Ngongy defence and got his foot to the ball a split-second before keeper James Towers' hands, to guide the ball into the net.

With regular head coach Shane Davis away, stand-in Stephen Towers said his side wobbled a bit at that point in the game.

"We've wobbled before and not handled, it but we did today," he said.

Balance was restored when a pinpoint pass from Pinto found Harlem Simiona in space and with time to pick his spot, fired his shot inside the near post.

Ngongotaha AFC player Harlem Simiona was one of the goal scorers for his team. PHOTO/BEN FRASER

Two minutes later Ngongy were ahead when Pinto beat the offside trap, skipping round Busser and finding the net from a narrow angle.

Early in the second half, a head down from a corner fell to sub Josh O'Sullivan who made no mistake and Ngongotaha were looking more comfortable.

An injury to Barker saw Stephen Towers introduce Simon Te Kiri who slotted in at left back.

Up for a corner, he celebrated coming on by scoring with a powerful header and then added his second with an equally powerful shot after a short corner.

"We were always going to bring him on, it was just earlier because of the injury," said Stephen Towers.

A six-week cameo by centre back Andy O'Donoghue, with the club while home on holiday from his studies in the US on a sports scholarship, came to an end with this game.

"With Andy going back to America, Simon was always going to come on to get him ready for the Northern League," said Stephen Towers. "To come on and score two goals is very good and you can't argue with that."

While the substitution meant a bit of a reshuffle of troops, that wasn't a problem.

"We are lucky that when subs come on, we have players that can rotate into different
positions.

"And we aren't so one-dimensional - we showed that today. We played long and we knocked it short today. [Beachlands] are first or second in their conference and they had a couple of tidy players, but they never really hurt us."

Next Saturday Ngongotaha return to Northern League division two football with a home game against Onehunga-Mangere AFC.