Yesterday saw Auckland City get past 2010 champions Hekari United 2-0 in the O-League before the Wellington Phoenix forced a 1-1 draw with Adelaide United in front of over 20,000 fans – a home record for the Phoenix – in an historic A-League fixture at Eden Park, the first football match played at the venue for 23 years.
Last season’s runners-up Amicale disposed of Koloale 2-0 in the weekend’s other O-League clash in Port Vila, Vanuatu.
But it was the city of Auckland that hosted most of the action and the Waitakere-Ba match proved more than worthy of its billing as the feast’s finale. Members of the region’s strong Fijian community headed west in their droves for the eagerly-anticipated meeting and vantage points were scarce at a jam-packed Fred Taylor Park in Whenuapai.
Even though it was a home game for Waitakere, the majority of the thousands gathered had come to back Ba and still harboured hopes of a Men in Black win as the half-time whistle sounded at nil-all.
But the outlook of the game changed significantly just after the restart when Ba’s Marika Madigi was caught up in a challenge on former All Whites fullback Aaron Scott and was shown a red card by Tahitian referee Norbert Hauata.
And the visitors’ luck didn’t get any better in the 56th minute, Ross McKenzie breaking down the left and squaring for the unfortunate Jone Vesikula to direct the ball into his own net.
It was 2-0 just four minutes later and this time there was nothing fortuitous about the strike, McKenzie bending a spectacular free kick into the far corner of Jone Ralulu’s goal from an acute angle on the right hand side of the box.
McKenzie, whose sharp passing and forays forward from leftback made him a strong contender for man of the match, also had a hand in Waitakere’s third of the afternoon when his shot was deflected out for a corner in the 71st minute. McKenzie took the corner himself and his delivery to the near post caused a goalmouth scramble before midfielder Chris Bale stabbed home off the underside of the crossbar.
Neil Emblen’s men made even further use of their numerical advantage in injury time when substitute Sean Lovemore got in the way of a Malakai Kainihewe clearance and the ball rebounded into the net.
Coach Emblen was pleased to pocket a second successive O-League win but believes there is plenty of room for improvement ahead of the trip to New Caledonia to face Mont-Dore in a fortnight.
“The main thing was to get three points at home and we did that,” he said.
“It makes it hopefully a little bit easier for us now when we travel away. There’s less pressure on us with two home wins under our belt. But it wasn’t the greatest performance, we gave Ba a few chances in the first half. I think the first goal settled everybody down though and it looked like we were going to go on and win from there.”
One of Waitakere’s main challenges was always going to be dealing with the passionate support for the visitors – although Waitakere’s Fijian international Roy Krishna also had his share of admirers – and Emblen felt his charges handled it well.
“It was just good to see that amount of people out here,” he said. “It shows there is support in Auckland for football and I thought they got behind their team well today. I think there were quite a few neutral Fijians supporting Roy for us as well. It was a good day and hopefully they’ve enjoyed a good game.”
Ba captain Alvin Singh was disappointed with the result but was proud of the committed nature of his players’ efforts.
“I thought it was quite a good performance, especially in the first half,” he said.
“We had our chances but didn’t make the most of them. And then in the second half we were down to ten men which made it difficult. There was a huge number of supporters here for us and it was really nice to see them come out and get behind us. It was a big boost but unfortunately we couldn’t give them the result they wanted.”
Mont-Dore vs Tefana Summary click here
Amicale vs Koloale Summary click here
Auckland City vs Hekari United Summary Click Here
Waitakere United vs Ba Summary click here
Competition Summary click here
Disciplinary Summary click here