Queens Park catchup – Card fever
Old Boys 4 – Queens Park 2. ILT Turf
Coming hot off the heels of our trip to Timaru for Chatham Cup we had a short turnaround to play Park on a Tuesday night down at the turf. Old Boys had plenty available for this one and named 5 on the bench to keep their options open late in the match.
The game started with a hiss and a roar with Brandon making a well timed run to go 1:1 and score in just the 5th minute. Thats about where the good news ended for Old Boys in the 1st half. The team guilty of switching off defensively and allowing an unmarked player to get on the end of a decent cross for one all. Worse was to come as we were caught out at a smartly taken free kick. Scotty was forced to make a tackle and unfortunately was called for a penalty. 2:1 to Park.
Shortly thereafter Joel would see red with his second caution in quick succession meaning an early shower. Strangely we started to create some chances and Brandon and Ben broke through on a number of occasions. On one of these occasions Brandon drew a foul from the keeper and a spot penalty. Unfortunately his effort from the spot wasnt great and was comfortably saved. In an identical movement the Park keeper was sent from the field for his second yellow as he was beaten to the ball.
From here we spurned several good chances to take a lead and so went to the half at 2-1 down with both teams with 10 players. The message was simple at half time, stop panicking, there is plenty of time to win this game. Take our opportunities.
The second stanza wasn’t going well for us when Scotty D gave away another penalty, thankfully he didn’t pickup a further booking. Up stepped Thomas Francis O’Boyle and he picked the right direction to make a good save and keep us in the match.
It took some time but eventually we found the equaliser through Ben with a strong drive, then we set about winning this game. With just 5 minutes on the clock and the match seemingly destined for a disappointing draw we finally broke the offside trap and Brandon was able to round the keeper to tap in. Ben got the last laugh with one final goal with a strong finish which left the keeper with no chance.
A good result but boy we did it the hard way.
