Steve Hudson Cup Results

Steve Hudson Cup Results

Northern Rangers 5 (C.Hunt, M.Ambrose 2, T.Hingston, A.Luate) def Prospect Knights 1 (B.Croswell) HT 3:1

Newtown Eagles 3 (Van Linden, Mckeown, Ayres) def Riverside Olympic (N.Lanau-Atkinson) HT 1:1

South Hobart 4 (Postma, Brennan 2, Morton) def Launceston City 1 (Goodwin)

Ulverstone 4 (Mann 2, A.Foote, B.Foote) def Glenorchy Knights 3 (Kamarno, M.Nowicki  OG)

Agele Luate for Northern Rangers

Northern Rangers went into the final round match of the 2012 Steve Hudson Cup needing a win to stay in contention for the final, while Prospect needed a win to have any chance of getting off the foot of the table. Last place sits the final week out with the bye.

Prospect are starting to get some of the premiership side back together, this week Chris Pickering and Sean Harris returned to the line up.

Rangers saw Mark Ambrose return to the starting line up with Simon Petrusma returning to the squad from the bench.

Wet and slippery conditions greeted the sides, as Rangers settled in quickly, moving the ball with one touch pass and move football, and kept Prospect chasing early in the half.

A solid ball from Todd Hingston through midfield to Agel Luate had Luate off and away down the right wing, his cut back found the outstretched boot of Chris Hunt to bury the first goal of the match inside 10 minutes.

Rangers were able to double the lead when Mark Ambrose struck a soft shot from the edge of the 18 yard box and his shot slipped under the diving keeper.

Prospect rallied, and always looked dangerous on the counter.  Ben Croswell turned his defenders at the top of the 18 yard box and kicked through a fine shot that ended in the bottom right hand corner to give Prospect a leg up at 2-1.

Agel Luate managed to score for Rangers within 3 minutes of conceding the goal after he found some space and went one on one with the keeper and finished his shot to restore the Rangers lead and this was the score to half time.

Prospect only had two players on the bench, so it was expected that they would tire in the second half, when Todd Hingston created some room for himself to fire off a shot from just inside the penalty area and score, Rangers were looking dangerous with the score at 4-1.

Riverside's Keeper Mark Littlechild flies to clear the ball.

Prospect to their credit though pushed another player forward to try and reign in the Rangers lead rather than lay down and cop it sweet,  and they created some good chances in the process.  A fine cross from Andy Compagne was tapped out by the Rangers keeper  to the feet of a Prospect striker  who had an open net to score in, but his shot hit the cross bar and the ball returned into play.

Mark Ambrose made the most of the additional space up front when he was sent through with no defenders insight, he rounded the keeper and slotted the shot to put Rangers out to a 5-1 lead and the final result.

Newtown eagles went ahead inside the first 5 minutes over Riverside Olympic when Nathan Pitchford sent a fine long diagonal ball to the right corner, Van Linden latched onto the ball and slipped it past Mark Littlechild in the Riverside goals.

Riverside responded well to conceding the goal and created various chances, but again Nathan Pitchford thwarted the Riverside efforts.  Riverside did however get back on level terms before half time when Nick Lanau-Atkinson pulled one back.

The second half was tight again with Newtown scoring twice through Adam McKeown and Bradley Ayers while Riverside were only able to muster up one goal when Nick Lanau-Atkinson doubled his tally. The 3-2 final score recorded Eagles second win of the cup.

Nick Morton for South Hobart

South Hobart easily over came Launceston City in the end, but not without a late scare, after leading 3-0 at the break, City scored the first goal of the second half to peg the margin back to 3-1.

South opened the scoring through Dylan Postma and Andy Brennan netted a first half brace for South Hobart to be comfortable at 3-0, but it was early in the second half that saw City’s Nick Goodwin narrow the lead and give Launceston City a sniff.

Nick Morton came through for South Hobart to cancel any chance of a late game fight back for City when he netted a good goal from an acute angle with 10 minutes left to play.

Ken Morton said after the game “I thought we played well today, backing up after yesterday’s loss to Zebras, It was important that we carried on trying to play good football.  We just got a bit sharper up front with the breeze behind us.”

Ulverstone Celebrate Adrian Foote's goal that sent the Reds
into next Sunday's final vs South Hobart. Two out of the last
three years, the loser of the Cup final Vs South Hobart, have
gone on to win the NPL title.

“Andy (Brennan) was a bit sharper today and we got good penetration, Mizeal was good as well in the first half, he gave us good width and got in behind.”

“Dylan Postma who has been out of touch scored a good goal, we did better in the front third and Loic Ferral was outstanding in midfield today”

All eyes then turned to the Ulverstone V Glenorchy Knights game, where a 2 goal win would assure Ulverstone progression to the final, or a goal fest more than 3-2.  As it was the game was stuck at 3-2 in Ulverstone’s favour, this result had Rangers through on a count back after beating Ulverstone earlier in the cup.  But Ulverstone dug deep and scored the important fourth goal needed to get them to the final.

Glenorchy started well and led Ulverstone before Ben Foote scored to put Ulverstone back on level terms.  An own goal scored for Knights got them back in front at half time.

Second half and Ulverstone pushed on looking for a berth in the Final with South Hobart and were thrown a life line when Brayden Mann got his first goal thanks to a goal keeper clearance,  then he sunk a goal from a corner to put Ulverstone 3-2 in front.   With just 10 minutes left, Adrian Foote hit a fine first time drive from on the edge of the penalty area that snuck over the keeper and under the cross bar and Ulverstone lead 4-2, Knights did find a consolation goal with 2 minutes left on the referees watch,

but it was too little too late.

Nick Owen said after the game “the first half was rubbish, we couldn’t hit a pass to save ourselves, then second half, we played a few people in different positions and it went alright, we had some good finishes for a change”

The Result leave South Hobart and Ulverstone to battle it out for the Steve Hudson Cup next week in the final.

Final 2012 Steve Hudson Cup Table.

Team	P	W	D	L	+	-	Pts
South Hobart	3	3	0	0	11	3	12
Ulverstone	4	3	0	1	12	7	9
Northern Rangers	4	3	0	1	11	6	9
Launceston United	3	1	0	2	9	7	6
New Town Eagles	4	2	0	2	9	12	6
Glenorchy Knights	4	1	2	1	7	10	5
Riverside Olympic	4	1	1	2	7	7	4
Launceston City	3	0	1	2	2	8	4
Prospect Knights	3	0	0	3	4	15	3

Next week’s fixtures.

Final: South Hobart Vs Ulverstone.

3^rd Place: Northern Rangers vs Launceston United.

5^th Place: Newtown Eagles Vs Glenorchy Knights.

7^th Place: Riverside Olympic Vs Launceston City.