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10/05/09
Five-Star Lynn-Avon Thumps Three Kings
by Jeremy Ruane
Lynn-Avon United ensured they would reach the half-way mark of the Lotto Northern Premier Women's League on top of the table on May 10, after handing arch-rivals Three Kings United the mother and father of all hidings at Keith Hay Park on Mother's Day.
The 5-0 scoreline flattered the beaten team, such was Lynn-Avon's superiority. In just about every position, right across the park, the visitors were on top of their game, producing a five-star display which wrecked Three Kings' perfect beginning to the campaign, while maintaining their own startling start, one in which they have yet to concede a goal in six matches.
Her team-mates chose to mark Kirsty Yallop's final game for Lynn-Avon - she teams up with fellow Football Fern, Ali Riley, at Californian-based W-League side Pali Blues later this week - with a season-defining exhibition of top quality women's football which will live long in the memory.
There were bravura displays from Melissa Ray, Dana Humby, Emma Kete and the back-from-injury Sarah Gregorius in particular, but in this match, two players stood head and shoulders above their peers.
Katie Hoyle, the Javier Mascherano of NZ women's football (`Masch' for short!), was simply immense, breaking up opposition attacks and instigating Lynn-Avon's with monotonous regularity, and generally getting through a power of work in much the same manner as Anfield's Argentine agitator.
As for Hayley Moorwood … quite simply, an attacking master-class. It's a shame this game wasn't videoed, because only by watching a replay would one truly appreciate her performance, one rich in enterprise and endeavour on the ball, and industry and highly intelligent movement off it, something emphasised by the number of times she lost her marker. It left the impression she wasn't being marked at all …
New Zealand's captain emphasised this point inside the first three minutes of the match. Moorwood received the ball from Yallop and deftly flicked it onto Kete before ghosting forward as her team-mate took on and beat Anna Green before whipping the ball into the danger zone.
Arriving on cue was Moorwood, who, after just 133 seconds, was only denied the game's opening goal by a superb save at point-blank range from Aroon Clansey. Three Kings' `keeper injured herself in the process, but before she could receive treatment, the resulting clearance had found its way to Gregorius.
She floated in a cross from the left which arced over all-comers, bar one. Moorwood's anticipation of the developing situation saw her taking up a position beyond the last Three Kings defender, and when Gregorius' cross arrived, she neatly controlled it before drilling the ball unerringly across Clansey and inside her far post. The 'keeper got her fingers to it, but after just 153 seconds, Lynn-Avon were in front.
The goal was due reward for Lynn-Avon's initial intensity, something which they maintained throughout proceedings. The pressure they exerted forced Three Kings to commit a number of errors, such as in the thirteenth minute, when Abby Erceg's stray pass culminated in Kete beating two opponents before setting up Yallop for a shot which sailed over the bar.
Two minutes later, Maia Jackman - after Clansey, Three Kings' best-performed player - played the ball forward looking for Lauren Murray. Ray and Humby initially thwarted that opening, only for the latter to gift the Young Ferns' striker the ball. Murray promptly unleashed a shot on the turn which Ashleigh Cox smothered soundly on the quarter-hour.
Four minutes later, Lynn-Avon appealed for a penalty after Moorwood went down in the area under a Jackman challenge. Their pleas were ignored by one of the country's highest-ranked match officials in Kevin Stoltenkamp, whose appointment underlined how high a standing this particular encounter enjoys in New Zealand football.
He thoroughly enjoyed the experience, too, as both teams set about playing to win a keenly and cleanly
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the histrionics and gamesmanship which the official encounters all too frequently in other matches.
The pleasing 200-plus crowd looked on in the 21st minute as Three Kings' new signing, Leah Tagaloa, gave Briony Fisher the runaround - not for the last time in the match - before scything inside off the left flank and letting fly from twenty yards.
Cox was equal to the effort of a player who showed enough in this match to leave many wondering afterwards why this talented 21-year-old has been allowed to languish in social grade circles for the past three seasons.
Back came Lynn-Avon, Kete giving Yallop something to chase through the inside-left channel. Clansey saved at her New Zealand team-mate's feet at the second attempt, before Three Kings enjoyed their best spell of the first half, around the half-hour mark.
Merissa Smith took Sam Selwyn to the cleaners when released down the right, and was somehow allowed to get to the by-line by Lynn-Avon, before fizzing a low cross into the goalmouth. Ray hacked it clear, the bouncing ball just evading Tagaloa's efforts to get it under control.
The newcomer was the beneficiary of Three Kings' next raid, which had Jackman as its source. Murray neatly controlled her team-mate's ball forward before squaring the sphere to the unmarked Tagaloa, whose chipped effort gave Cox plenty of cause for concern before it dropped just beyond the crossbar.
Yallop's second booking in as many matches - this time for encroachment - was the catalyst the departing dynamo needed to raise her game, and channel her aggression in the desired manner. A superb slide-rule pass sent Moorwood motoring through the inside-left channel, only for Clansey to hurtle out of goal and clear off the marauder's toes.
Then in the 34th minute, Kete and Gregorius combined for their captain's benefit, Yallop skipping past Nadia Pearl's challenge before unleashing a thunderous thirty-yarder which Clansey punched over her crossbar.
The resulting corner was cleared, but only as far as Hoyle, lurking out on the right flank. She fired in a vicious cross which had Erceg and Kristy Hill - Three Kings' captain is way off her game at present - at sixes and sevens in their efforts to deal with it.
In between them lurked Gregorius, off whose thigh the ball cannoned. Clansey, stranded, could only watch as the sphere arced over her and ricocheted back into play off her right-hand post.
Three Kings averted the danger this rebound posed, and ended the half in the ascendancy, with Tagaloa, the well-contained Rosie White and Smith combining to present Murray with a chance, one she was poised to take but for Cox snatching the ball away from her with a full-length forward plunge.
There were some terrific individual battles going on within the contest, with that between Kete and Green the pick of them. Emily Cooper was doing a sterling job in containing the threat Annalie Longo posed Lynn-Avon, while White discovered at first hand why this writer regards Ray as the best man-marking defender in New Zealand football.
The second spell was just four minutes old when Lynn-Avon struck a killer blow to Three Kings' hopes of getting back into the contest. Selwyn and Humby linked with Yallop, whose super turn and angled slide-rule pass sent Gregorius galloping through the inside-right channel. Clansey advanced towards her, but the striker marked her first start of the season with a clinical finish - 2-0.
And almost three minutes later. Moorwood found herself in acres of space on Three Kings' left flank, and dashed towards goal before thrashing a shot towards the target. Clansey produced a brilliant save to deny the league's leading goalscorer, tipping the shot onto the post.
Yallop delivered the resulting corner, with Ray driving a shot through the crowded penalty area. Clansey dived to her left to parry the effort, with Erceg completing the clearance, but only as far as Kete. Her cross found Cooper on the far post with
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the goal at her mercy, but she somehow contrived to prod the ball wide of a gaping net.
Three Kings knew they had to be the next team to score if they harboured hopes of snatching at least a share of the spoils, and in the 58th minute, almost got back into the contest via an unlikely source.
Left-foot strikes from Jackman are almost as rare as soccer matches on Christmas Day, but her speculative dipping thirty-five yarder had Cox in all sorts of bother as it arced goalwards. The crossbar came to Lynn-Avon's rescue, with Murray, following in like all good strikers should, unable to get the rebound under control and turn it home.
Nineteen minutes from time, Lynn-Avon put the result beyond doubt. Yallop whipped in a wicked free-kick from wide on the left to the near post. Clansey parried it, but Kete was first to react, and poked home the rebound - 3-0.
Straight from the kick-off, Longo, free of the shackles the now substituted Cooper had placed upon her, dashed downfield and produced some brilliant footwork to wriggle her way through Lynn-Avon's defence. Cox darted out and saved at the midfielder's feet.
Fifteen minutes from time, Hill conceded a free-kick some thirty yards out from goal. What followed is one of the finest set-piece goals you'll see all season - a party piece featuring Lynn-Avon's “Twin Terrors” at their brilliant best.
As Yallop stepped forward to curl the free-kick towards the far post, Moorwood's speed of thought and movement accounted for her marker, and the two-yard start it gained her was all she required to climb above all-comers on the far post and head home a superbly executed goal.
After Longo had warmed Cox's gloves with a twenty-yarder, Lynn-Avon went nap nine minutes from time. Gregorius got the better of both Jackman and Smith - ironically, two Three Kings' players whose heads hadn't dropped by this stage - on the left and uncorked a curling shot which Clansey turned away.
Moorwood hurtled in, only to see her shot blocked by Hill, but the rebound fell perfectly to Ray - 5-0, and a goal which the defender's display richly merited.
Three Kings looked to add a modicum of respectability to the scoreline six minutes from time, with Smith and substitute Maggie Lankshear working a short corner. The latter's cross picked out Erceg at the near post, but her header flashed past the target.
Two minutes later, Lynn-Avon surged forward on the counter-attack, Kete leading the charge with Moorwood in acres of space on her left and Gregorius racing through on her right. The latter was the chosen option, but she was unable to get the better of Clansey this time round, the `keeper ably assisted by the fast-retreating figure of Hill on this occasion.
The Three Kings duo nearly contrived a calamitous own goal two minutes from time, with Hill, under pressure from Kete, playing a back-pass to Clansey which resulted in the `keeper executing a perfect air-shot.
No-one was more relieved to see the ball creep past her post for a corner than Three Kings' number one, without whose efforts the home team would have gone close to suffering a double-figure defeat.
This was emphasised in stoppage time, when Clansey twice tipped shots round the post from Kete, after Liz Milne and Yallop had provided the ammunition. A splendid 5-0 triumph on their arch-rivals' patch was Lynn-Avon's lot, however, and their delight contrasted starkly with Three Kings' despair, the hosts having been outthought and outfoxed in just about every aspect of the game.
Three Kings: Clansey; Jackman, Hill, Erceg, Green; Smith, Longo, Pearl, Tagaloa (Lankshear, 74); White (Osbourne, 60), Murray
Lynn-Avon: Cox; Fisher (Head, 80), Humby, Ray, Selwyn (Milne, 64); Yallop (booked, 32), Hoyle, Cooper (Noble, 61); Moorwood, Kete, Gregorius
Referee: Kevin Stoltenkamp
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