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22/11/06
Smith's Hat-Trick Sinks Harbour's Play-Off Hopes
by Jeremy Ruane
A well-taken hat-trick from Merissa Smith on Wednesday evening sunk North Harbour's hopes of progressing to Sunday's Lion Foundation National Women's League semi-final, as the New Zealand Under-18 Development Squad rounded off their campaign with a stylish 4-0 win over the competition's northernmost federation.
The result means Waikato-Bay of Plenty will travel to Newtown Park on Sunday morning to take on Capital Soccer at midday, with the victors heading to Auckland on the first Sunday in December to contest the Grand Final.
A draw would have been suffice for Harbour to progress, but they were facing an uphill battle to manage even that as early as the sixth minute. The newly crowned Auckland Secondary Schoolgirls Women's Soccer Player of the Year, Ria Percival, whipped in a goalkeeper's nightmare of a vicious corner which careered into the goalmouth at just below crossbar height.
Neither Ashleigh Cox nor any of her defenders could deal with it, much to Smith's delight. From point-blank range, she couldn't - and didn't - miss!
Harbour had three chances to draw level inside the next nine minutes, with Monique Genet firing weakly across the face of goal after a headed Abby Erceg clearance fell at her feet in the eighth minute.
A far worse clearance from U-18s `keeper Rebecca Meyer saw Anna Barlow - in her last game as a 23-year-old - thunder a twenty-yard snapshot inches past the post two minutes later, with the custodian making up for this error through her alertness to thwart Genet on the quarter hour, as Harbour's leading markswoman looked to capitalise on another mistimed clearance from Erceg.
Smith, meanwhile, had stung Cox's gloves with a shot, after an enchanting move down the left featuring Annalie Longo, Caitlin Campbell and Holly Nixon. The last-mentioned was involved again in the 24th minute, this time with scoreboard-changing consequences.
Katie Hoyle, contrary to the instructions she was receiving, played some delicious through balls for her goal-hungry team-mates to exploit throughout this match, and in the 24th minute, released Nixon through the inside-left channel with one such well-weighted delivery.
The striker latched onto it, and took full advantage of the space Gabrielle Britton afforded her to turn the defender and cut inside before firing a low cross into the goalmouth, Smith her intended target.
The retreating figure of Cath Porteous lunged desperately and successfully to prevent the ball from reaching its intended recipient, but sadly for the Harbour stalwart - a whole-hearted contributor to her federation's cause over the years - she diverted the ball past Cox for an own goal which left the home team's play-off hopes in tatters, and a rather distraught midfielder rueing her part in proceedings.
Rebecca Simpson is another who never fails to give everything and then some for the Harbour cause, and it's fair to say that without her whole-hearted defensive efforts, the black-clad combination would struggle to be anywhere near as competitive as they have been in this and previous campaigns.
In the 26th minute, the pony-tailed defender had to be at the top of her game to see off the threat of Nixon. Grace Vincent sent Longo skipping through the offside trap down the right, and New Zealand's youngest-ever international clipped over a delightful cross to Nixon, who had the goal at her mercy.
How she contrived to miss it, only she will know, and the fact she never got a second bite of the cherry was down to Simpson swiftly closing her down and ultimately clearing the danger - a great piece of defensive play, and by no means the last from Harbour's captain in this encounter.
Two minutes later, Lauren Mathis caught Nicole Stratford in possession, an opening which the young Harbour striker wasted little time in exploiting. But she hadn't reckoned on Erceg's recovering run, the defender doing just enough in her challenge to take the venom off the striker's shot, which made it a great deal easier for Meyer to deal with.
In the 31st minute, the moment Harbour realised that their hopes were all but dashed came to pass. Barlow - a rather subdued performance by her lofty standards - pounced on a stray clearance and played in Genet, who beat Meyer all ends up only to see her effort hit the far post.
More fine work by Simpson prevented the Under-18s
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 Merissa Smith
 Hayley Stirling
 Nicole Stratford
 Ashleigh Cox
 Caitlin Campbell
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from increasing their advantage before the interval. The defender swooped to clear after Cox had splendidly parried Campbell's powerful header from a Percival corner in the 36th minute, while four minutes before half-time, Simpson's superb covering tackle thwarted Smith after the goalscorer had been picked out by Stratford's angled through ball.
The second half was slow to get going, but once Staci O'Brien's long-range effort had warmed Meyer's gloves in the 55th minute, it wasn't long before the Under-18s were back in full harness, and pressing for more goals.
Percival and Campbell combined on the right to present an opening for Smith, and while her twenty-yarder was capably dealt with by Cox in the 58th minute, the striker drove a dagger through Harbour's collective heart three minutes later, her second goal of the game the one which effectively finished off any hopes the home team held of clinching a play-off berth.
The architect of the goal was Hoyle, who charged downfield before slipping a slide-rule pass in to the feet of Nixon, who had Simpson in close attendance. The striker's clever back-heel into the path of the marauding figure of Smith saw the speedster stride through a cavernous gap - where was Simpson's support? - in Harbour's rearguard to despatch the ball unerringly beyond Cox.
At 3-0, the game was up for Harbour, but after Cox had grabbed a Percival drive, the home team looked to at least grab a crumb of comfort on the scoreboard. Barlow picked out substitute Lisa Kemp in the 67th minute, and the youngster, whose last-gasp goal on Sunday had given Harbour the chance to make the play-offs, cracked a volley just past the upright.
The Under-18s responded with another exciting raid, Longo and Smith at its heart. Nixon was the beneficiary of their productivity, but Simpson thwarted the opening, at the expense of a corner. Percival and Longo worked a short routine, the latter holding play up before the former was in position to cross. A measured pass was followed by a driven delivery, which the head of Erceg sent bulleting over the crossbar.
After Campbell had taken over from the overlapping Percival to angle a pass through which the flat-footed figure of Nixon failed to take advantage of, Longo was seen at her effervescent best in the 77th minute, skipping past challengers in breathtaking fashion.
Cox put an end to the prospect of the goal of the game being scored by saving at the midfielder's feet, but she could do little to prevent it from being struck three minutes later, as Smith signed off from soccer for six months - she undergoes shoulder surgery late next week - with her hat-trick clinching goal.
Hoyle was again the architect, her through ball inviting Smith to turn on the after-burners once more. With Simpson covering Nixon's progress, it was Michele Hogg's duty to cover the speedster, but the defender's reactions were far too slow, despite having a five-yard start on the New Zealand international.
Smith powered past the sluggish stopper, but still had plenty of work to do with Cox charging out of goal in an effort to cover the danger. But the striker produced a sumptuous chipped finish over the advancing goalkeeper to round off the scoring in style.
Cox twice denied Smith in the next three minutes, while a Percival corner in the dying minutes only just missed going in via the far post. North Harbour, meanwhile, pressed on in search of a consolation goal, only for Meyer to thwart Kemp and Barlow - a powerful header - in the time which remained.
Kemp and Rebecca Parkinson combined to put Mathis through in stoppage time, but she opted to shoot early, the ball flying wide to confirm a 4-0 win for the Under-18s in their last hit-out of the season, and a very satisfactory third-placed finish on the final league table.
North Harbour, meanwhile, were left to wonder what might have been, fifth place their lot at the end of a campaign in which their inability to score goals - seven all told - was emphasised by the fact that it took Mainland Pride until their fifth game of the season to score their first goal of the campaign, and they ended up netting nine in their seven matches.
Harbour: Cox; Britton, Simpson, Hogg (Saito, 84); Stirling (Kemp, 58), Barlow, Porteous, O'Brien (Armstrong, 64), Steele; Mathis, Genet (Parkinson, 66)
NZ U-18s: Meyer; Percival, Milne, Erceg, Stratford; Vincent (Selwyn, 75), Hoyle, Longo; Smith, Campbell, Nixon
Referee: Zac Naylor
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