Larry O’Rorke Challenge Cup heads to Queenstown

Queenstown Rovers continued their good form in Southland Football’s premier men’s Donald Gray Cup competition when they beat the formidable Old Boys unit 3-2 at the ILT Football Turf in Invercargill on Saturday.

Old Boys had played through the 2014 Donald Gray Cup competition unbeaten, and had extended that record in 2015 until Saturday’s loss.

As a result of their win Queenstown not only consolidated their top position on the points table but wrested the Larry O’Rorke Challenge Cup away from Old Boys long- term tenure.

It took the visitors just 12 minutes to register their first goal on Saturday when Rene Gonzalez finished off a wellworked move to put them ahead 1-0.

Old Boys were struggling to find their rhythm and were guilty of missing chances on the odd occasion the Queenstown defensive line failed to shut them down.

Rimu Roode was next to score for Queenstown as he made sure they went to the halftime break with a 2-0 cushion.

Old Boys began the second half in style, and it was not a surprise when James Tucker was on hand to tap the ball home from an Old Boys defence splitting move to give his team hope at 2-1.

Queenstown’s resilience was strong, and they contained Old Boys well despite strong games from Jon Barnard, Bara’a Toubat and Atain Halley, who threatened to reduce the lead.

It was not to be, though, as Adam Hewson latched on to a deep clearing kick from Queenstown stand-in goalkeeper Steve Henderson and found a way through the Old Boys defence to increase their lead to 3-1.

Queenstown also had the last say in the goal scoring for the game when at the 30-minute mark after an out-of-character defensive mix-up a defender deflected his supposed clearing kick into the Queenstown net to reduce Old Boys’ deficit to 3-2.

Try as they may, Old Boys had no answer to the solid display of Queenstown’s defensive trio of Mo Winders, Oliver Dowling and Rory Hannan, who were instrumental in ensuring the visitors completed a memorable win.

‘‘We came to town with a tactical plan to compact our play which the lads carried out well. It’s a great result for us and we will enjoy it, but it’s just one game on the way to our aim for the season.’’ Queenstown coach Jamie Whitmarsh said.

At Surrey Park No 4 Queens Park came back in style from last week’s surprise loss to Thistle to beat Southend United 5-1. Queens Park attacked from the outset and an early free kick and two corner kicks that Southend defenders managed to scramble to safety were early indications of a possible Queens Park return to form.

So it proved to be as goals from Kevin Downie and then Matty Burgess gave Queens Park a 2-0 lead going into the half time break. That lead was doubled just five minutes into the second half when first Mike England and then Stu Kent were on target to increase the lead to 4-nil. Southend United had few attacking moments and when they did the Queens Park defenders led by a polished display from Tobi Reid contained them with ease.

That was until

Southend United’s Mike Sheridan found the net with a good goal to reduce the score to 4-1. England then scored his second goal for Queens Park to give them their final 5-1 margin and allow them to leapfrog Old Boys into second placing on the points table. ‘‘We worked on our set-pieces during the week and it showed today. We were always a threat at setpiece time and that hasn’t been happening for us.’’ Queens Park coach Kevin Downie said.

Waihopai and Autotec Thistle fought out a 1-all draw in the remaining game with both goals from Israel Calder (Waihopai) and Tim Kuick (Thistle) coming in the second half.