Cup finals all-Auckland affairs again
The national club football knockout cup finals will be allAuckland affairs for the second year in a row.
Upper Hutt City, Dunedin Technical and Christchurch’s Cashmere Technical had been the last outsiders remaining, in the women’s and men’s competitions, but all three lost.
Eastern Suburbs accounted for Upper Hutt at Madills Farm in Auckland, scoring all their goals in the second half as they won 5-0, to advance to the National Women’s Knockout Cup final for the second time in their history.
Upper Hutt, Capital Football’s W-League champions, had two golden chances to take the lead, one in either half, which could have dented Eastern Suburbs’ confidence.
Upper Hutt’s first chance came in the dying minutes of the first spell, when former Football Fern Sarah Gregorius pounced on a ball that Eastern Suburbs’ keeper, Corina Brown, had fumbled, but she could only send her scrambled attempt onto the post, and her follow up wide.
Early in the second spell, Brown was the hero, tipping a shot by Bria Sargent from distance over the bar with one hand, to keep the scores level.
On the hour mark, Eastern Suburbs went down the other end and flooded numbers into the box for the umpteenth time, and Tayla O’Brien was able to pull the ball back across goal, giving Jacqui Hand the whole net to fire into and break the deadlock.
After that, the floodgates opened. Hand turned provider, sliding the ball across the face of goal for Erin Roxburgh to finish in the 67th minute, then added her second, thanks to a similar ball from Aimee Phillips, in the 72nd, and a third, to claim a hattrick, in the 88th.
O’Brien then put the icing on the cake, scoring her side’s fifth in added time.
The Auckland side will now face Glenfield Rovers, who beat Dunedin Technical 2-0 in the other semifinal.
In the men’s competition, Central United and Onehunga Sports will contest the decider.
Central easily accounted for fellow Aucklanders Bay Olympic on Saturday, winning 5-0, while Onehunga eased past Cashmere Technical 3-0 yesterday.