SWANZ Cup 2003

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SWANZ Cup 2003

Sweet Revenge For Queens Of The Cup

by Jeremy Ruane

Seven weeks is a long time to wait when plotting to avenge a defeat, but Lynn-Avon United gained sweet revenge for the only blot on their copybook in 2003 when taking arch-rivals Ellerslie to the cleaners in the Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup Final at North Harbour Stadium on August 17.

The 4-1 scoreline made amends in no uncertain terms for the Northern Premier Women’s League match between the teams at the end of June, when Ellerslie mauled Lynn-Avon 3-1, a day on which only four United players could hold their heads up and say they did justice to the shirt.

This time round, just three Ellerslie players - defender Kristy Hill, goalkeeper Stephanie Puckrin and captain Maia Jackman - can make the same boast, as Lynn-Avon emphasised their superiority in emphatic fashion. But for the aforementioned trio, that 4-1 outcome may have been far greater. As it was, it earned Lynn-Avon a record fourth win in the ten-year-old competition.

Indeed, only a fingertip save at full stretch by Puckrin prevented Sara Clapham from opening the scoring in the sixth minute, after she had been released down the right by Hayley Moorwood. Two minutes later, Zoe Albon was fortunate to escape any more punishment than the free-kick awarded by referee Hengo Sioneloto, after clipping the heels of Amber Hearn when the last defender left facing a Lynn-Avon raid.

The cup holders were quickly warming to their task, and in the sixteenth minute, Michele Keinzley rampaged down the right. Hill blocked her cross, but the ball fell kindly for Hearn, who jinked past a challenge in the penalty area before letting fly. Despite falling the wrong way, the advancing Puckrin stuck out her left hand and pawed the ball to safety - a superb save.

Ellerslie’s goalkeeper then took the full brunt of the charging Terry McCahill in the twentieth minute, as Lynn-Avon’s captain surged into the penalty area after Ellerslie failed to clear another Keinzley cross. McCahill received a talking-to from referee Sioneloto, as Puckrin regathered her senses.

The goalkeeper was beaten three minutes later, after Hill had cleared a McCahill free-kick to Kirsty Yallop. The youngster’s twenty-five yard drive fizzed narrowly wide, with Puckrin at full stretch.

Two goals in three minutes around the half-hour mark finally emphasised Lynn-Avon’s early dominance where it matters most - on the scoreboard. Keinzley sprung the offside trap in the 28th minute, and whipped in a low cross which Clapham gleefully steered home.

Two minutes later, Clapham and Moorwood combined to send Keinzley scooting clear down the right once more. With Rebecca Parkinson racing into the box in anticipation of a rebound, Puckrin’s handling of the attacking midfielder’s cross had to be sure - it was.

But the goalkeeper was beaten by Clapham again seconds later, the striker squeezing her shot under her opponent’s diving frame after outpacing Albon on a run into the penalty area, which was prompted by Jennifer Carlisle’s early ball forward.

Ellerslie, to this point, hadn’t fronted as an attacking force, but a Vicki Rainbow through ball in the 32nd minute finally unleashed the pace of Zoe Thompson. Yvonne Vale was first to the ball, however, only to clear it under pressure to Vicky Butterworth. The young midfielder’s first-time thirty-yard effort flew just past the far post with the goal gaping.

Six minutes before half-time, Hill thwarted Parkinson at the death as Lynn-Avon found themselves queuing up to add to their two-goal advantage, something which the ever-lively Moorwood almost did sixty seconds later.

Picked out by Jill Gilmore’s pass, the midfielder’s unchallenged run from deep took her into Ellerslie’s penalty area, where not even the advancing figure of Puckrin could prevent a shot. Sadly for Moorwood, the ball

flashed past the far post.

After Puckrin had saved a twenty-yarder from Hearn, Ellerslie came desperately close to scoring in the last minute of the half, when Butterworth rattled the crossbar from similar distance following her team’s first corner of the match - an indication of how infrequently they had threatened Vale’s goal to this point.

Five minutes into the second half, the game was up for last season’s runners-up. Melissa Ray released Keinzley down the right - the former Ellerslie player had a whale of a game - with a pass which allowed the SWANZ international to lure Puckrin out of goal before steering a precise cross into the goalmouth.

Clapham slid in to turn home her hat-trick strike, becoming the fourth player (after both Beth Clark (Three Kings United) and Maureen Jacobson (Petone) in 1997, and Lynn-Avon team-mate Amanda Crawford three years ago) to score three goals in the final in the process, the feat earning her the MVP award for her efforts.

With the game effectively over as a contest - there was no way on earth Lynn-Avon were going to concede four goals in forty minutes, given they’d conceded just five this season, three of which came in one match - the cup holders kept probing for further goals, while Ellerslie’s cause turned to one of saving face.

They came close on a couple of occasions, Saskia Bullen’s rasping twenty-five yarder finding Vale right behind it on the hour mark, while the full-of-running Jackman, who was increasingly left to shoulder her team’s attacking forays in the face of her colleagues’ increasing despondency, found Lynn-Avon’s goalkeeper in fine form in the 66th minute, the custodian racing off her line to save with her legs.

Eleven minutes from time came the coup de grace, and there could be no more fitting administrator of it. Moorwood raced clear down the left and curled in a cross which found Keinzley perfectly poised to strike.

The despair from collecting three runners-up medals in the last four years was unleashed in a ferocious volley, which crashed against the underside of the crossbar, bounced down then up into the roof of the net before Puckrin had a chance to save it - 4-0, and how Keinzley and her team-mates enjoyed the moment!

They could have gone nap before the final whistle. Puckrin raced off her line to save at the feet of Parkinson as she latched onto a Hearn pass four minutes from time, while Moorwood’s inch-perfect pass sent Clapham clear on the right in the last minute.

The striker lured the luckless Puckrin out of goal before sweeping a low cross into the goalmouth. Parkinson slid in to meet it, but poked her effort wide, and pounded the ground repeatedly in frustration.

By this time, though, Ellerslie had reduced the deficit with, as consolation goals go, one of the very best. With a minute to go, Jackman’s continuing pursuit of lost causes earned its reward when she led a left-flank raid on Lynn-Avon’s goal.

Checking her run, she laid the ball back to Margot Bowker, who curled home a stunning strike from twenty-five yards into the top left-hand corner of Vale’s net to complete the 4-1 scoreline, one which Lynn-Avon took great delight in, and with every justification.

Their fourth win is a new competition record, and sees Vale, McCahill and non-playing substitute Dana Heiford joining Jackman as the only players to boast four winners’ medals in the Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup - of that quartet, Heiford is the only one who has yet to taste defeat in a final.

Ellerslie: S. Puckrin; Humby, Hill, Albon; Jackman, Bullen, Rainbow, Butterworth (J. Puckrin, 89), Rowney (Tagaloa, 60); Bowker, Thompson (Heslop, 89)

Lynn-Avon: Vale; Ray, McCahill, Carlisle; Keinzley, Moorwood, Hearn, Gilmore, Yallop; Clapham, Parkinson

Referee: Hengo Sioneloto

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