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15/08/04
Devastating First Half Display Sends Three Kings To Final
by Jeremy Ruane
A devastating first half performance from Three Kings United was more than suffice to destroy any hopes reigning Wellington champions Seatoun harboured of progressing to the 2004 Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup Final on August 15, as the Auckland side routed their opponents 5-0 at Keith Hay Park, with four of the goals coming in the first forty-five minutes.
The first materialised just ninety seconds into the match, as United secured a dream start against opponents who had lost just one game all season prior to this encounter. Zoe Thompson released Sarah Gibbs with a great ball down the left, and the midfielder roasted Sara Vasey before driving over a low cross.
The ball went behind Thompson, but coming up in support was Maia Jackman, whose initial shot was blocked by Liz Pearson. But United’s captain, showing no signs of the knee injury which sidelined her until a fortnight ago, reacted quickly to the rebound and drilled the ball across the diving Karen Rigby to set United on their way.
Seatoun didn’t know what had hit them, and in the fourth minute, they came close to conceding a second goal, as Three Kings set about their task with surgeon-like precision. Dana Humby sent Thompson sprinting down the left, the striker outpacing Ali Hansen before cutting into the penalty area. With Sarah Ropati and Jackman arriving in support, United’s leading goalscorer opted to shoot, but Rigby saved with her legs.
The visiting goalkeeper fumbled a Gibbs cross soon after, but recovered before the closing figure of Thompson could pounce. Come the twelfth minute, however, United doubled their advantage, with the trio responsible for the opening goal combining once more.
This time, Jackman scampered down the right, outpacing Jacqui Goble in the process, before delivering a cross which was a virtual invitation to score. It proved to be just too far ahead of Thompson, as she launched herself for a diving header, but Gibbs was arriving right on cue on the far post, and duly finished coolly.
Seatoun were still reeling from this setback when their rearguard action was torn asunder for a third time two minutes later. This time, the architect was Kim Rowney, who evaded the challenge of Patrice Bourke on the left before clipping a delightful angled ball through the visitors’ defence.
Having hardly had the chance to savour possession of it, Rigby and company were content to let the ball go out for a goal-kick so they could. Jackman was not so inclined, however, and her appearance in the goalmouth was akin to a fox in a henhouse - dinner was served, and the New Zealand star wasted little time in savouring her second helping!!
3-0 after fourteen minutes, the contest effectively done and dusted having barely begun. A Seatoun supporter was providing a running cellphone commentary on the game to a colleague down country, and the call was sounding more despondent by the minute!
It became rather frantic barely a minute later, as United’s blitzkreig had Seatoun scrambling desperately to deny a fourth goal. They succeeded - just - with Ropati, Hannah Rishworth and Thompson all seeing goalbound efforts blocked on the line.
The same combination which engineered the third goal combined again in the eighteenth minute, Rowney picking out Jackman with a cross. Rigby prevailed on this occasion, but it’s rather sobering to think that this is the best women’s club side in Wellington Three Kings were up against, and in fitness terms alone, Seatoun weren’t even at the starting gates.
Football-wise, they were having to live off crumbs, because United were putting on the footballing equivalent of The Lord Mayor’s Show. The quality of their play at times had coach Barrie Barmes beaming with delight, and after Ropati and Thompson had gone close came the piece de resistance, on the half-hour.
Ironically, it came about as a result of Seatoun’s first raid of any consequence, Zara Verkerk having sent Annie Olssen chasing after a through ball. But the combined efforts of Petria Rennie and Humby put paid to that threat, and the defensive duo duly ignited Three Kings’ best team goal of the season.
It was as good a display of one-touch football as you could wish to see - a six-player interchange starring Humby, Rennie, Jo Barnett, Jackman, Sowden and Ropati, who was spoilt for choice when she looked up to find Gibbs and Thompson breaking at pace through a bewildered Seatoun back-line.
She opted for the former, and Gibbs said thanks very much in the best possible manner - chipping Rigby from thirty yards to provide a fitting climax to a fabulous move. A quite superb goal.
A demonstration of the variance in fitness levels between the two sides was seen in the 33rd minute, when Seatoun’s player-coach, Lisa Gibson, played the ball out to Goble, who had space aplenty in which to work, Thompson, Three Kings’ nearest player, being some ten yards distant at best.
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If your attention wandered at the time, here’s what happened next. The New Zealand striker sprinted after Goble and whipped the ball away from her as clean as a whistle before racing clear and picking out Jackman with a cross.
Only a great save from Rigby spared Goble’s blushes, but the underlying message this incident told spoke volumes - the difference in the levels of intensity being applied by the teams was immense. Little wonder Three Kings lapsed into cruise control as they did in the second spell.
Beforehand, however, they threatened Seatoun’s goal thrice more in the remaining minutes of the first spell. Rowney and Thompson combined for Gibbs’ benefit, the hat-trick-hunting midfielder seeing her shot saved by Rigby.
And prior to Sowden sending a rasping twenty-five yard drive over the bar, Ropati threaded a pass through for Thompson, who found herself near the byline and unable to cross to the fast-arriving Gibbs.
What to do? Surprise Rigby with an acute-angled drive targeting the top near corner of the net. The ‘keeper did well to turn to safety an effort which didn’t appear to be an option … although the mood Three Kings were in, nothing was sacred!
They began the second spell in a similar frame of mind, with Rishworth, Gibbs and the overlapping Rowney linking down the left, the last-mentioned whipping in a near-post cross which Thompson narrowly turned past the post in the 48th minute.
Two minutes after, an offside flag against Jackman denied Gibbs her hat-trick goal, while Thompson somehow failed to get on the score sheet in the 52nd minute, after Sowden’s lovely through ball gave Gibbs time and space aplenty in which to cross from the left. The striker headed against the crossbar from close range, and lifted the rebound over the bar under pressure from Rigby.
Three minutes later, Humby led the siege, teaming up with Jackman and Sowden to provide Thompson with her last chance of the day, which she fired into the sidenetting before being withdrawn from the fray as a precaution for an ankle knock.
It was around this point that United visibly reduced their intensity, being quite content to knock the ball around comfortably, and pick off Seatoun’s hopeful raids with little difficulty. Jo Barnett, Jackman and Ropati were all thwarted in the next fifteen minutes, before an inswinging Gibbs corner seventeen minutes from time saw the ball cleared off the line to Ropati, whose close-range header was grabbed by Rigby, with the ball quite literally half-way over the line.
Seatoun’s frustration was understandable, with Goble earning a rebuke from referee Graham Whitford for a reckless challenge on Ropati at one point. There were a couple of other such blemishes which went unpunished, more often than not due to Three Kings getting the ball back again virtually straight away.
One visiting player who stood out head and shoulders for her spirited display was Bourke - hardly surprising, given her pedigree as a former Lynn-Avon United player. This fixture re-ignited in her those competitive juices from long-ago battles between Lynn-Avon and Three Kings, and while Nikki Wenzlick and the hard-running Olssen could also hold their heads high for their individual efforts, it was somehow fitting that Seatoun’s lone shot on goal should come from Bourke.
Intercepting a pass on the left, the midfielder cut inside on a fine run past three opponents before letting fly. Wendy Horneman parried the shot, the spin on the ball taking it towards goal.
With Olssen homing in looking to give Seatoun a consolation goal, a former team-mate of Bourke’s at Lynn-Avon appeared on the scene to execute a goal-line clearance, and ensure the team she captains would keep their goal-line intact - Jackman wasn’t having a bar of goals against in this match!
This action inspired Three Kings to raise their game again in the time remaining, and seven minutes from the end, they scored a fifth goal. Gibbs’ free-kick picked out Sowden, who laid the ball back into the path of substitute Vicky Butterworth. Her precise fifteen-yard finish arrowed across Rigby into the bottom left-hand corner of the net - 5-0.
There could have been more goals in the remaining minutes, with Butterworth, Jackman and Gibbs all going close, the second-mentioned also hitting the base of the post with a venomous drive after working an opening with Abby Erceg.
But 5-0 was Three Kings’ lot over first-time semi-finalists Seatoun, their reward a place in the Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup Final, one which, particularly on their first half display, they richly deserved.
United: Horneman; Rennie, Humby, Barnett (Erceg, 76), Rowney; Jackman, Sowden, Rishworth, Gibbs; Thompson (Butterworth, 56), Ropati
Seatoun: Rigby; Vasey, Hansen, Gibson (McFarlane, 72), Goble; Gut, Wenzlick, Bourke, Pearson; Verkerk (Marks, 46), Olssen
Referee: Graham Whitford
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