Tasman held by Parklands
FOOTBALL: Tasman United lacked their usual creative spark on attack as they were held to a 1-1 draw with a defensively stubborn Parklands side at Jubilee Park on Saturday.
After a scoreless first half on a wet pitch in Richmond, it was the visitors that broke the deadlock, Connor Duggan poking the ball into the back of the net after goalkeeper Nicole Hyland had made an initial save to deny Parklands from a defencesplitting long ball.
The 1-0 lead didn’t last long though, Sports Therapy Tasman replying just moments later through substitute striker Matilda Dawson, who once again made a positive impact off the bench.
Tasman midfielders Rhea Hopkinson and Anna McPhie regularly made breaks down each flank but coach Ryan Stewart lamented a lack of creativity in the final third, unable to turn the positive play into genuine goal-scoring chances.
‘‘It became one dimensional and all we wanted to do was play it down the wing every five minutes. We have to be clever and be smarter footballers, and hopefully we will become smarter footballers, but it’s just little things like that that are letting us down at the moment,’’ he said at fulltime.
Stewart said the team ‘‘never looked like scoring again’’ after Dawson’s equaliser, admitting the players need to be more patient when searching for a game-winning goal.
‘‘We ran out of ideas, we weren’t patient, we tried to force things and our passing was the worst I’ve seen. The pitch didn’t help but we just weren’t ourselves today. But to be fair Parklands got in our faces and made it difficult.’’
Stewart handed goalkeeper Hyland her first start of the campaign and the coach was impressed by her performance on debut.
’’I told her to go out there and do her thing. She’s been training well all year and I thought she did really well.’’
Though they were unable to find a winner, there was some consolation in the fact the 1-1 draw guarantees Tasman third place in their first season in the Mainland Women’s Premier League.
In other results, Cashmere Technical scored three second half goals to continue their perfect season with a 3-0 win against Universities and Lucrettia Taylor’s hat-trick was the difference as FC Twenty11 beat Waimak United 4-2.