Queens Park ‘switch off’ as chance for first win slips by

Queens Park have let a golden opportunity slip from their grasp in terms of banking their first win in football’s Southern Premier League competition.

Invercargill-based Queens Park won back-to-back Donald Gray Cup titles in Southland during the past two seasons and have made the move in 2022 to join the Football South Premier League.

The competition is made up of the leading clubs from Timaru south, including Queenstown and Wanaka teams.

Queens Park headed into Saturday’s showdown with Mosgiel without a point next to their name after four outings despite showing enough to suggest they can be competitive.

Queens Park went 1-0 up at halftime at the ILT Turf in Invercargill, before scoring again early in the second half to make it 2-0.

At that point, there was plenty of belief that win No 1 was on its way for Queens Park. However, Mosgiel were presented with four goalscoring chances and took them all as Queens Park went from 2-0 to trail 4-2.

Queens Park scored again to make it 4-3, but that’s how the result remained.

Queens Park coach Paddy Murphy was disappointed his team could not secure what would have been a confidenceboosting victory.

‘‘We were 2-nil up and cruising and playing really and just switched off, let them back into the game. Unfortunately, it ended up being a huge disappointment.’’

Murphy said they probably should have been four or five up at halftime but did not capitalise on their chances.

‘‘Unfortunately when you leave teams in the game and give them a chance to come back, that’s what they’ve done.

‘‘They’ve had four shots and scored four goals, we probably had 25 shots and scored three, it’s just the way it worked.’’

Queens Park’s next assignment will be a trip to Dunedin to take on Green Island on Saturday.

In Donald Gray Cup action in Southland on Saturday, Old Boys knocked over Queens Park 3-1, while the Southland United under-17 team and Thistle will clash tonight.