Another fine day greeted us for our trip down the motorway to Manurewa for the 8th Grade Tournament that had been rescheduled from July. In our pool games, we faced Manurewa Lions and Ellerslie and in the third game, we got a bye. Manurewa were defensively strong and put 6 players behind the ball, making it difficult to progress in their half of the field. Eventually, Joe Moore (Vauxhall) broke through with a great shot after being put through by Xander White (St Leo's) and we won the game 1-0. On to Ellerslie - and we quickly went behind 1-0 after a defensive clearance error. But Romeo Dean (Vauxhall) quickly put us level and in the second half, Joe Moore scored a great goal to win us the game - and so come top of the pool. Things were looking good!
The knockout phase of the competition began with a 'Round of Sixteen' where we had to play the team who came bottom of Pool B, Forrest Hill. This was another tough game despite the fact that we had them back in their own half most of the time. A couple of breakouts from their team required great cover defence from Luke Pank & Josh Kench (Vauxhall) to keep them at bay. Eventually Romeo Dean struck again and we went through 1-0.
In the Quarter Finals, we faced Glenfield Rovers, who had only narrowly got through on penalties. We had met them at the Birkenhead Tournament the week before and drew 2-2, so this was time to get even. Again, we dominated the play and went close with shots from Barnaby Watts (Stanley Bay) and Xander White. We went ahead in the second half with an outstanding blaster goal from Hugh Minogue (Hauraki) - he dribbled across the penalty box to set himself up with a left foot shot and smacked it into the top corner of the net! A few minutes later, Logan Hooper (Stanley Bay) collected the ball at the halfway line, side stepped a player and smacked a long range shot into the corner of the goal - magnificent! 2-0 up and onto the semi finals.
In the meantime, Three Kings Utd had been sweeping all other teams aside and winning their pool and knock out games 3-0 and 4-0..... now it was the semis and so it was our turn to face them. This game was a tough one! We changed to a more defensive formation and planned for quick counter attacks - Hugh Minogue was especially good at picking up the ball in midfield and dancing off down the wing before getting good crosses in, as he had been doing all tournament. Having had a quiet time of it most games so far, Ben Jones (Devonport) made some especially good saves against the TKU attack, tipping one over the bar and parrying another around the post for a corner; and Logan Hooper and Josh Kench made some great defensive headers to clear the ball of the line from corners and direct shots at goal. In the end though, we could not convert the several chances we had - and neither could they - and the game ended 0-0 at full time. Five minutes of extra time later, no golden goal was scored and so it was on to penalties. Never a great way to go out of a tournament, we lost the penalty shoot out 5-3. It was strange being one of the last four tents there. All the other teams had gone home, so it was just us Three Kings, East Coast Bays and Bay Olympic. The final was between TKU and Bay Olympic, which they won 1-0, so again we were dispatched by the eventual winners of the tournament. But there is no shame to having had only one goal scored against you in five matches and in coming 3= in amongst teams of such calibre. Once again, the 8th Grade Boys had done North Shore Utd proud.
Players of the Day: Hugh Minogue, Ben Jones, Logan Hooper, Josh Kench
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