Opening Victory for the Reds
After a long pre-season it was finally time to get the League underway. This year’s Premier grade will be competed by just four teams for the first time in many years with Gore, Thistle and Queens Park joining Old Boys in the quest for Southland football supremacy. All four teams look capable of winning on their day, so it should be an interesting season for the purists. The teams will play four rounds for a total of twelve matches.
Old Boys have had mixed numbers at trainings with plenty of new players coming into the squads and plenty having moved on to greener pastures for study in the offseason. Old Boys took on Gore first up at Waverley Park. These teams finished one and two last season and had some absolute belters of matches. This one also didn’t disappoint at least for fans of the Reds. Old Boys welcomed back Kyle from injury in preseason and he set about making up for lost time early.
Old Boys jumped out to a 3-0 lead inside 20 minutes as Kyle and Jared ran riot up front. Kyle had a first half hat trick as he alternatively went for finesse and power with his finishing. Kris and his new partner in crime in 2019 Dave Stovelaar dominating in the middle of the park. Seamus and Hayden were also getting good purchase working down the wings and delivering some dangerous crosses.
Heading into halftime the team had Terrence in goal to thank for a couple of good saves to keep Gore out of the contest. The message at half time was to slow things up going forward as the boys were a bit gun-ho about getting forward.
The second half started well with goals four and five going in from Kyle and Liam from close range with good build up play. At this stage we started to ring the changes, and this coupled with the guys starting to get a bit slack led to two soft goals for Gore that the guys won’t want to repeat later in the season. One final goal was scored by Reuben as he snuck onto a poor touch from a central defender and then had the reserve keeper to thank for generously letting his shot go in.
Final score 6-2 with both teams capable of putting a couple more away on another day. Old Boys retain the Larry O’Rorke Challenge Cup and jump to the top of the standings on goal difference. Next week we travel to the marshlands to take on Park which will be a tougher match.
