Riverside First Half Blows City Away and Ulverstone set to be test against Rangers.

Antonio Macri prepares to go forward for City.

A Dominant first half from Riverside and a couple of key goal keeper errors gave Riverside a handy 3 goal lead at half time of the first game of round three in the Steve Hudson Cup.

Ryan McCaragher scored first for Riverside when David Smith in Launceston City’s goal fumbled a shot and allowed McCaragher a tap in.

A similar slip from the usually safe hands of Smith gifted Oliver Edmonson of Riverside his first goal of the cup.  To cap off a stellar first half from Olympic Nick Lanau-Atkinson scored direct form a free kick to put Riverside ahead 3-0 at the half time break.

Riverside continued to dominate the possession and the shot count, but couldn’t break through the City defense in the second half.

In the remaining games of round three, Ulverstone will come up against Northern Rangers, in what should be an entertaining and enlightening match at 11am on Sunday morning.

 A win to Ulverstone will all but secure them a birth in the final, most likely against South Hobart who sits this week out with the bye.  Ulverstone will be excited by their preseason form, and coach Nick Owen said in the Advocate earlier in the month “There is a sense of excitement and expectation around the club this year, the pressure is on to deliver”.  

"We have a strong enough squad to really have a crack at the title this season."

If the feeling and vibe is correct, this Sunday would be a great opportunity to get the physiological edge on Northern Rangers, who have held the wood over Ulverstone for some time now.

Rangers will look to fine tune their line up in preparation for 2012 NPL kick off, and this week’s side looks to be close to full strength for the Rangers.  The sides will match up well and this promises to be a good contest.  Rangers will welcome into their line up another new signing in Mitch Duffy for this week’s clash and gain back the services of Mark Ambrose.

Newtown Eagles will but heads with Prospect Knights, the last time they met was in the State Wide Championship series, where Newtown came away with a win that lead to a birth in the final against South Hobart.  This week’s sides will look very different though, with Steve Pitchford only having 7 of his assumed senior players available to travel North for the contest.  The Cup is over for both sides, but the rather large carrot is the opportunity to get of the foot of the table, and avoid a win-less cup campaign.  Last place will sit the final week out of course, so a win almost secure the side a valuable practice match before the season proper.

Prospect had last week off, and all eyes will turn to them to see if anymore of their Premiership players have returned since their embarrassing 6-1 loss to Launceston United.

The final match will be at 3pm when Launceston United come up against Glenorchy Knights.  Knights coach Chris Hey was full for praise for Launceston in his interview with Walter Pless, and expects a tough match against a revitalised Launceston United.

Mark Egan has adopted a rotation policy for Launceston United, one can only hope it does not include Thors Nimely who has been in sensational goal scoring form, and will be key for the Blues if they are to stand a chance of getting over Glenorchy this weekend.

This Weekends matches:

11:00am Ulverstone Vs Northern Rangers

1:00pm Newtown Eagles Vs Prospect Knights

3:00pm L’ton United Vs Glenorchy Knights

Local coverage in the Examiner Newspaper.

Supporters of the code in the North.  Can I urge you to visit the Examiner web site at least on a Monday morning and hit the local sport section and view Mark Baker’s report on the weekend’s game each week.  http://www.examiner.com.au/

This weeks link - http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/sport/football-soccer/ulverstone-south-hobart-charge-up-ladder/2460109.aspx

If we are serious about getting a better deal with the local paper, then lets vote with our feet so to speak, and hit the examiner website and get our hit counter going, thus showing the examiner that there is interest in the sport in the north.

This blog proves there is interest, and if we show the local paper some support, then I would assume they will give Bakes efforts more reward, and hopefully push us closer to the back and give more coverage of individual clubs.

I know that when approaching potential sponsors, one of the questions that come up is what sort of media exposure can we expect if we get involved? So the more pics and reports in the examiner the better your chances of landing a good sized sponsor.

Do your bit, if only for 1 a minute on Mondays, and support a paper that can provide greater support to us.

Round 2 Steve Hudson Cup Table

Team	P	W	D	L	+	-	Pts
Ulverstone	2	2	0	0	7	2	6
South Hobart	2	2	0	0	7	2	6
Launceston City	1	1	1	0	1	1	4
Launceston United	2	1	0	1	8	5	3
Northern Rangers	2	1	0	1	4	4	3
Prospect Knights	1	1	0	1	1	6	3
Glenorchy Knights	2	0	2	0	2	2	2
Riverside Olympic	2	0	1	1	2	4	1
Newtown Eagles	2	0	0	2	1	8	0

Steve Hudson Cup Round 2 Results

South Hobart 4 (A.Brennan 2, Morton, Linhares) def Launceston Untied 2 (T.Nimely) HT - 2:0

Northern Rangers 4 (C.Hunt 2, A.Luate 2) def New Town Eagles 1 (A.Mckeown) HT - 3:0

Andy Brennan leads the golden boot after netting another
brace this weekend.  Pic Courtesy of http://www.shfc.org.au/

Launceston City 1 (Macri 43) drew Glenorchy Knights 1 (Griffin 90)

Ulverstone 3 (Robert-Thompson, Singleton, S.Conkie) def Riverside Olympic 1 (Kinslow)

South Hobart kept their unbeaten record intact recording a 4-2 win over the host team Launceston United in round 2 of the Steve Hudson Cup.  But this was far from the result many expected as Launceston showed they will not be the easy beats of the last few years.

South shot out of the blocks and Andy Brennan helped his side to a two nil lead at the interval, but Launceston found an avenue to goal in the second half through the inform Thors Nimely.  Nimely scored twice in the second half to assist Launceston in making a fist of the contest, and it could have been level if the linesmen had been asleep as Launceston scored from an offside position.

Importantly this match showed Launceston could stay with South Hobart for 90 minutes, something Rangers failed to do last week, and Launceston struggled with earlier in the year when they played a friendly match against South Hobart.

Nick Morton controls infront of Jack Hudson of Launceston.
Pic courtesy of http://www.shfc.org.au/

South did however put two goals way themselves in the second half including a fine goal just before time from Andy Brennan to seal the result, ending the game on a 4-2 score line thanks to goals from Morton, Linhares and a double to Andy Brennan.

Launceston Coach Mark Egan said “First half we were severely under the pump.  The pace of the game was un believable.  They scored some good goals and got away from us to some extent.”

“It was game of two halves though and to score two goals in the second to get right back into the match was great, it could have been 3 all but it was justly judged off side.  I felt we matched it with them all day and thankfully the game was in the morning or one of our guys might have died.”

“I am really happy with the effort because I think they were close to full strength and we are still playing with our line up.”

Northern Rangers were in control of the first half against Newtown Eagles without being outstanding.  Rangers scored three goals in a dominate first half performance but didn’t actually look like they got out of second gear. 

Rangers new striker Agele Luate netted a brace for his new club while Chris Hunt got his year off to a start to complete the first half white wash at 3-0.

Rangers mixed things up in the second half, making wholesale changes to the line up in the early stages of the half.  Eagles made the most of the less settled line up and Adam McKeown broke through the Rangers defense to provide a glimmer of hopefor Eagles in the second half. 

Rangers did pull themselves back together and when Chris Hunt grabbed his second goal for the day, the result was a fore-gone conclusion.  Rangers running out 4-1 winners and recording their first win for the year to give them a faint hope of making the final.

Northern Rangers co coach Marshall Pooley said after the game: “Tenzing Anderson was outstanding in the first half.”

“We had great movement from the front three with our young player Josh Burk moving really well with Agele Luate and Chris Hunt”

“I was happy with the game, another game under our belts and it was good to see more quality for extended spells rather than 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there”

David Jordan for Launceston City.  Pic courtesy of
Launceston United Facebook group.

“Alex Bligh went ok on debut in goals, that’s a big step up for him and it’s good to see our younger guys doing a job”

I was really happy with Issa Dumbuya, and he looks like he will fill one of our midfield holes this year left by Derek Schipper and Scott Murray”

Launceston City made their first appearance of the tournament and added a point to the three they received for having the week off last Sunday.

Glenorchy Knights fell behind when Antonio Macri scored in the 43 minute to give City the edge just before half time, but Glenorchy showed great pride and netted an equaliser in injury time to snatch a point, their second of the tournament.

Ulverstone and Riverside played on the slightly smaller number two pitch, and it was Ulverstone who got home in a 3-1 victory.

Riverside’s new signing from Prospect Knights, Rhys Kinslow scored Riverside’s only goal, but the score line flattered Ulverstone somewhat, with Riverside looking better than the score suggested.

Ulverstone’s goal scorers were Ian Roberts-Thompson, Jason Singleton and Shaun Conkie. 

Ulverstone Coach Nick Owen was happy with the result but had this to say after the game: “We won but Riverside played the better football.”

“We had plenty of chances in the first half but didn’t finish, plenty of work for us to do at training”

Today’s results leave Ulverstone on the top of the ladder followed by the only other team with a perfect record to date, in South Hobart, and they are now in a strong position to qualify for the final given that South Hobart get a guaranteed 3 points next week with the bye and then face Launceston City in the final round.

North West Summer Cup Results

 Devonport 5 2-0 HT (Keenan Douce 2, Jordan Douce, Nathan Gratton, Michael Holden.) Def Ulverstone 1 (Joel Stone)
Joel Stone sent off after 75 minutes

Somerset 1 (Smith pen) def Burnie 0

North West Summer Cup Table

Team	P	W	D	L	+	-	Pts
Devonport Strikers	1	1	0	0	5	1	3
Somerset Sharks	1	1	0	0	1	0	3
Burnie United	1	0	0	1	0	1	0
Ulverstone	1	0	0	1	1	5	0