Yesterday, my wife and I went to the Westpac Stadium to see the Phoenix play Gold Coast United in their second to last home game in the regular season. Hopefully there will be home games during the play-offs. The weather had improved a little from earlier in the day when it rained off and on all morning in Wellington. At least it didn’t rain during the game, but there was a moderate southerly which kept the temperature cool even though we are only in the first week of autumn.
The Phoenix had the upper hand most of the match. They had a number of chances to score but Jerrad Tyson, the Gold Coast keeper, pulled off a number of spectacular saves which ensured that the final score was not a walk over. The Phoenix converted only two chances, one on the half hour to captain Andrew Durrante; the other in injury time just before the final whistle was scored by Nick Ward who come on as a replacement into the second half.
It was one of those days when the ball did not bounce the Phoenix way which happens from time to time. To make matters worse, a number of the Phoenix endeavoured to blast the ball through the goalie and not around him or just push the simple pass to another member of the team to tap in.
In a review of an earlier match, I questioned a number of the decisions of the referee. To be fair, I should also report that the officials of this match all had good “games” with no glaring errors or injustices and no unwarranted yellow cards - from memory, only one name went into the book all match.
Over all, a win is a win and a two nil score line makes for “Another good day at the Cake Tin.”
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