Red Sox Grayson Burston and Wanganui City's Jordan Joblin-Hall race for the ball during Saturday's Federation League match at Wembley Park. Photo/ Lewis Gardner
Red Sox Grayson Burston and Wanganui City's Jordan Joblin-Hall race for the ball during Saturday's Federation League match at Wembley Park. Photo/ Lewis Gardner
With 10 minutes to go in the first half, Versatile Wanganui City would have been thinking about heading to the sheds to plot building on a well-earned 1-0 lead.
Things change, though.
By the break, the home side were three goals in arrears after Red Sox Manawatu piled on fourgoals in a nine-minute scoring spree which included a seven minute hat-trick to Fletchar Leslie.
It was a blitz City never recovered from as the Palmerston North side took out Saturday's match 4-1 at Wembley Park in an upset of sorts.
Red Sox sit two rungs below City on the ladder and the result was a reversal of the previous meeting between the two clubs, when City went to Skoglund Park in May and won by the same scoreline.
It left injured City player-coach Anthony Bell frustrated because "we probably fell asleep a bit for all of 10 minutes".
City were able to control play through the opening half hour, aside from Red Sox's Lee Rufer skying a golden chance in front of a near open goal in the seventh minute.
But the home side went on to string together several periods of good possession, with Latham Berry a regular threat to the visitor's defensive set-up.
And reward came when after Zane Robinson, holding the ball strongly at his feet, was brought down in the corner of the box.
Kyle Graham-Luke slotted the resulting penalty and City were on their way. But not for long.
Leslie snuck in the first of his hatrick in the 36th minute ,after latching on to a long ball and rounding City's keeper Merrick Slade.
Two minutes later, Leslie doubled his tally on the back of some incisive Red Sox passing and in the 43rd minute he stepped up to slot a penalty to complete one of the fastest hat-tricks the Wembley Park crowd is likely to see.
Chris Annabell joined the visitor's party right on the whistle, sending City into the break stunned.
"They're not a high-pressed team," Bell said.
"Which probably reflected on the way we came out after that first goal. They were chilled out, they didn't really pose too much of a threat and we kind of fell into that trap of relaxing and playing that kind of football as well.
"If it wasn't for that, we were in the game. At the end there the boys showed some good heart to put some chances on goal at the end."
While City were able to halt the scoring in the second half they found no way to claw their way back.
Robinson did find the back of the net late on, but was ruled offside.
City's goal scorer Kyle Graham-Luke assess his options. Photo/ Lewis Gardner
"It's done," Bell said.
"We're not going to think about this too much. It's just one of those games that didn't go our way so we're just going to write it off.
"There's plenty more games in the season to come, a few massive games as well. We've still got silverware we've got to play for as well.
"We can't win the League. There's no medal for finishing fourth in the League so we really need to focus on what we can do in the [Federation and Charity cups]. A performance like this can be a positive moving on."
With two rounds to go in the League, Bell said City was now looking towards their away Federation Cup semifinal with Gisborne United on August 31.
"That's what we're progressing towards and a loss isn't ideal but it's probably not bad as well - a shake-up for the boys," he said.
"There's a few mistakes there that we can probably work on. The small interplay that we did manage to do actually looked good."
In other results, North End and Napier Marist drew 3-3, Palmerston North Marist beat New Plymouth Rangers 3-0, Massey thrashed Palmerston North Boys High School 8-0 and Havelock North Wanderers defeated Hokowhitu 3-0.
