The Ultimate New Zealand Soccer Website | home
03/05/09
Hearn's Parting Shot Sinks Plucky Claudelands
by Jeremy Ruane
Lynn-Avon United emerged triumphant from a ding-dong go with Claudelands Rovers at Ken Maunder Park on May 3 to retain top spot in the Northern Premier Women's League.
Their 1-0 victory was earned on the no. 2 pitch, after a waterlogged area of the main ground just outside the car-park end penalty area was deemed unplayable in the interests of player safety, despite the earnest work of club officials to rectify the problem.
Being shifted off their stamping ground clearly gave the home team added vigour, not that they weren't motivated enough for this fixture, the last on home turf for a while for Football Ferns trio Amber Hearn, Ria Percival and Kirsty Yallop, who are taking up W-League contracts in the USA within the next fortnight.
A fitting send-off was the intention, and Hearn appeared intent on providing it herself from the outset. Hayley Moorwood swooped on a Rovers error just 85 seconds into the match and sent the her fellow front-runner racing through, Hearn's rasping twenty-yarder fizzing narrowly past the post.
Two minutes later, Yallop picked out Hearn with a corner delivered to the far post, which the striker met with a powerful header. The crossbar shuddered with the impact, and Rovers scrambled the ball to safety as they looked to stave off Lynn-Avon's ferocious opening spell.
Yallop was next to chance her arm, capitalising on Emily Cooper's good work to lash a twenty-yarder past the far post, while Katie Hoyle was next to chance her arm, her long-range effort following a short corner prompting Charlotte Wood to save comfortably.
Seconds later, Rovers' `keeper had to be at her athletic best as Hoyle, Hearn and Yallop combined to present Percival with a shooting chance on the edge of the penalty area. Wood finger-tipped the effort over the bar to temporarily bring a halt to Lynn-Avon's attacking fury.
For it was the visitors who were next to attack, on the quarter-hour. Keri O'Donnell and Anne Ormrod linked with Jackie Pretswell, which allowed the reigning Golden Boot holder to race towards goal before letting fly. Melissa Ray cleared the ball back to the striker, who was promptly felled just outside the penalty area.
Lynn-Avon cleared Nicole Stratford's resulting free-kick and immediately stormed downfield once more, earning a corner. Yallop's delivery to the far post again found Hearn lurking in areas Claudelands would have preferred were no-go zones for red-clad players, and this time the striker's shot was blocked by classy fullback Kylie Jens.
Rovers suffered a setback in the nineteenth minute, when Alex Shadbolt picked up an ankle injury in the line of duty and put herself out of the game for at least a fortnight. The defender's despairing lunge denied Yallop in the act of shooting, after the midfielder had evaded a couple of challenges, but the sight of Shadbolt lying prone on the pitch after the event had the alarm bells going.
Her replacement was Kate Carlton, who went on to have a whale of a game - the pick of a Rovers combination in which Wood, Jens, Kate Loye, Katherine Robinson and Sarah McLaughlin also performed strongly.
Robinson it was who was Claudelands' prime source of attacking impetus throughout a first half in which they were under the cosh for large periods, and in the 26th minute, she wriggled her way down the left before curling a sumptuous cross in behind the defence, perfectly into the path of Pretswell.
For all Lynn-Avon's pressure, this should have been the opening goal of the game. But with just Ashleigh Cox to beat, Pretswell made a pig's ear out of a sow's purse - a horrible miss, the sort which must be taken against teams of Lynn-Avon's ilk, because they are not gleaned with great frequency.
The fingertips of Wood came to Rovers' rescue
|
again just shy of the half-hour mark, after Hoyle had got the better of Pretswell in midfield, while just after the time milestone, Briony Fisher's long throw-in was flicked on by Hayley Moorwood to Hearn, who rammed a shot on the stretch into the side-netting.
Five minutes before half-time, the goal Hearn and Lynn-Avon coveted finally materialised. And fittingly it came from the number nine, her 81st in United's colours, and one in which she played a pivotal role in the build-up.
Fisher played the ball forward to Hearn on half-way, whose instant control allowed her to lay the ball off to Cooper and surge forward. The youngster spread play wide to Fisher, who again sought out Hearn, now further forward.
Nikki Wenzlick was beaten by the Young Ferns' captain's well-flighted ball, and Hearn, hovering behind her, swiftly seized on the opportunity, wrong-footing both Stratford and Carlton before coolly drilling a left-foot drive beyond the flailing arms of Wood and right into the bottom far corner of the net - 1-0, an expertly taken strike.
And a goal Lynn-Avon fully merited. Only defiant and at times desperate defending by Rovers' reshaped rearguard denied their rivals more opportunities, as United attacked from all angles.
They looked to continue on in this vein from the start of the second spell, with Ray, having moved into a central midfield role as United changed their tactics, igniting an attack just seventy seconds into the half after Jens found herself ambushed by a three-strong posse of Lynn-Avon opponents as she looked to build an attack.
Instead, Ray sent Percival powering through, with Hearn prowling in support. Wenzlick stood firm to clear the danger, but only as far as Hoyle, whose finish would have been ideal were she lining up a conversion at Eden Park!
Rovers had clearly copped a half-time rev-up from coach Dave Edmondson, because they were much more like their usual selves in the second spell, and gave the league leaders a right going-over as a result.
A stray Ray pass in the 48th minute allowed Ormrod to swoop on the loose ball, and she set off on a buccaneering solo raid which saw her somehow emerge with sphere at toe upon reaching the edge of the penalty area, three Lynn-Avon challenges later. The striker was seemingly surprised herself, because her shot gave Cox scant cause for concern.
Robinson and Pretswell combined seconds later to present McLaughlin with the chance to unleash a piledriver. Dana Humby blocked it, and Yallop instantly ignited a counter-attack which looked to have petered out until Moorwood picked the pocket of Stratford on the edge of Rovers' penalty area in the fiftieth minute.
Immediately, Hearn linked with half-time substitute Liz Milne to send Hoyle scampering down the right, from where she delivered a driven cross beyond the far post.
Soaring majestically to meet it was Moorwood, and her header bulleted towards the target. Wood could only block the ball skywards, and joined forces with Wenzlick to prevent it spinning into the net for what would have been the league's leading goalscorer's eighth strike of the campaign.
The next fifteen minutes was helter-skelter stuff - blink and you'd miss something at either end of the park. A one-two between Pretswell and Ormrod saw the former's twenty-yarder finger-tipped to safety by Cox in the 53rd minute, while a curling free-kick from McLaughlin didn't miss the far post by much two minutes later.
Back came United, Moorwood and Milne combining to give Percival the chance to give Carlton the runaround. Her cross found Hearn hovering beyond the far post, and the striker's powerful header was thwarted by a fine reflex save from Wood.
|
The 'keeper produced an even better stop to thwart the game's only goalscorer seconds later, Yallop's corner to the far post presenting Hearn with a point-blank range header which would surely have gone in had an inferior `keeper been on duty.
Still Lynn-Avon pressed, a wayward Yallop corner seeing Hoyle pick up the pieces and pick out Percival with a peach of a cross. Her deft header down allowed Moorwood to let fly from twelve yards - the crossbar shuddered again.
Rovers cleared the ball downfield, and a stumble by Cox as she came out of her penalty area to return the ball with interest gave the visitors a glimmer of an equaliser. But before Ormrod could pounce, Cox calmly played the ball to Sam Selwyn, despite finding herself sitting down on the job while doing so!
Mere seconds later, some dire defending by Fisher and Humby gifted Robinson the ball inside the penalty area. Before she had the chance to shoot, however, a blur of day-glow yellow culminated in Cox saving splendidly at the winger's feet.
The `keeper cleared her lines after this 63rd minute incident, and Milne and Moorwood masterminded an instant Lynn-Avon riposte which culminated in Yallop evading a couple of challenges before lashing a shot narrowly wide of Wood's left-hand post.
Two minutes later, Selwyn and Hearn combined on the left, with the striker picking out Percival with a perfectly weighted and angled thirty-yard pass right into her team-mate's stride. Into the penalty area she powered, only for Jens to produce a tackle equal in precision to the pass which created the opening - top quality stuff.
After this breathtaking stanza, it came as no surprise to see both teams drawing breath before going all out once more during the final phase of the match. Yallop sent a shot zooming across the face of goal in the 73rd minute, after combining with Milne and Percival, while seven minutes later, Rovers let rip with the first of a string of shots as they desperately sought an equaliser their contribution to the spectacle arguably merited.
Loye and Pretswell combined to present McLaughlin with a chance, but while her shot sailed harmlessly over the bar, the headed chance afforded Wenzlick five minutes from time should not have followed suit. Stratford's corner to the far post found her fellow defender arriving completely unmarked some six yards out from goal, but she mistimed her jump, and sent the ball over rather than under the crossbar.
Cox grabbed long-range efforts from Loye and McLaughlin in the minutes which remained, while United looked to provide a final flourish to proceedings in stoppage time, initially through substitute Sarah Gregorius.
Wood smothered the effort of a player whose relief to be back in action after injury was clearly evident from the moment she took to the park in place of a cramp-stricken Hearn, whose match-winning goal in an incident-packed encounter was a fitting way for the third-ranked most prolific markswoman in the club's history to bid adieu.
Had Percival, Hearn's partner in crime at Ottawa Fury in the coming months, provided a parting shot to round out the scoring in stoppage time, it would have made a fitting finale for both players. But her thumping drive fizzed just past the post, leaving Lynn-Avon victorious by a solitary goal over a gritty Claudelands team which is, without question, improving as a unit by the match.
Lynn-Avon: Cox; Fisher, Humby, Ray, Selwyn (Head, 68); Percival, Yallop (booked, 33), Hoyle, Cooper (Milne, 46); Moorwood, Hearn (Gregorius, 78)
Claudelands: Wood; Stratford, Wenzlick, Shadbolt (Carlton, 23), Jens; O'Connell (Patterson, 50), Loye, McLaughlin, Robinson (Kawana-Waugh, 68); Pretswell, Ormrod
Referee: Anthony Barnes
|