Here we are, the start another football season and our first home game.
Firstly many thanks to the club who have worked really hard over the off season (if there is such a thing as an off season) to provide us with everything we need, so we can focus on preparing the team to perform well and achieve our goals.
We have a few new faces joining the team this year, and while we will certainly miss those that have moved on, we’ve recruited really well which I believe has us positioned well for at least a contender to win the league and gain promotion.
Unfortunately we didn’t start how we would have wished last week with a 0 – 2 loss at Petone. The game itself didn’t reach any great heights and was mainly played out in the middle 3rd of the park.
At half time we had to make a change in goal due to Logan being accidently kicked in the head. I say accidently as I don’t believe the Petone Player intended to do it but from where I was standing it was very late and could have been avoided. The player received a yellow card but I believe a red would have been justified. Everyone has an opinion on this but the way I look at these situations is if this happen to one of your players what would you have deemed the appropriate punishment?
Josh went in goal for us in the second half and did an admiral job and by no means could be held accountable for the goals. But it does change our structure and it unbalanced us for what we had set out to do for that opposition. In saying that though we just didn’t create anything and didn’t show that hunger and desire that had been on display during preseason games. This has certainly highlighted to the team that we can’t take anything for granted and you have to work for what you want to achieve.
I would like to welcome last year’s champions, Martin and his side who got off to a great start last week by beating another title contender, North Wellington 5 – 4. We know they’re going to be strong competitors for winning the league, so it should be a great game to watch!
Finally, good luck to all other Upper Hutt teams, play hard, play fair but give it everything you have as you’re a long time retired!
Foz
2017 Parapine ITM Upper Hutt City Football Men’s 1st Team Squad
GK Logan van der Vegt
2 Brandon Postlethwaite
3 Josh Hinton
4 Peter Czerwonka
5 Luke Bradshaw
6 David Lane
7 Sam Patterson
8 Matt Fong
9 Jeremy Fong
10 Dan Close
11 Cameron McLachlan
12 Joe Sambrooke
13 Sam Rausch
14 Bryce Tamahaga
15 Nathan Woods
16 James Bennett
17 Benn Dawson
18 Ben Wood
19 Connor McIndoe
20 Donal Gahan
21 Simon Rippon
COACHES/ MANAGEMENT
Mark Foster
John Milroy
Hamish McLachlan
Dianne Shirer