Soccer: Central snatch win at last

By BOB PEARCE

Central United finally broke their losing streak yesterday, but it took them 119 minutes in a Chatham Cup soccer game.

The Sandringham club have plummeted to the bottom of the national league with seven losses in a row. Their last win of any kind was in a cup tie five games ago.

Against Bay-Olympic, two grades below them in the northern first division, Central needed 29 minutes of extra time before a Matthew Vuksich header put them through 2-1 to the quarter-finals.

The other Auckland survivors are Waitakere, 6-1 winners over first-division Onehunga Sports; University-Mt Wellington, who beat first-division Eastern Suburbs 6-0; and Metro, who ousted northern premier leaders Tauranga 4-2.

Elsewhere, Napier beat Halswell 4-1 in Christchurch, cup-holders Dunedin beat Nelson 3-1, Miramar downed Olympic 2-0 and Wellington United ousted Island Bay 3-1.

Central's long-suffering supporters groaned when Neil Woodhams curled a left-wing corner past goalkeeper Peter Evans to give Bay-Olympic the lead after less than a minute.

The revamped Central team fought back for the impressive Daniel Koprivcic to equalise in the 40th minute. But in the 76th minute they were down to 10 men when Evans, stranded way out of his penalty area, lowered Hamish Carmody with a professional foul and was sent off.

Despite the best efforts of Stacey Howell and Andrew Campbell, Bay could not capitalise and the game went into extra time.

Just when a penalty shootout seemed inevitable, Mark Elrick worked some magic to cross from a tight angle and Vuksich dived full length to head the winner.

Waitakere sealed their win over Onehunga Sports in the first 11 minutes when they were 4-0 up.

University-Mt Wellington were just as hard on Eastern Suburbs with three goals in each half.

But Tauranga dominated the early stages of their match with Metro, going 1-0 up after 15 minutes and living to regret misses by Tony Valentine and Dion Bartosh before Saxdy Phommahaxay equalised with a missile from 35m.

Rob McNeil made it 2-1 to Metro at halftime and although Tauranga equalised through Brett Derry, Nigel Curteis and a penalty from Sean Hird completed the Metro win.