THE AVE - ISSUE 12
FRONT COVER: Tariro keeps an eye on things BACK COVER: Josh celebrates his goal NEXT HOME GAME Waiheke United 20.07.19 @ 5pm
Welcome to Michaels Ave for another round of Lotto NRFL action Round 15 of the Lotto NRFL has developed into a crucial round for both Ellerslie and todays visitors Fencibles United – with the table looking like one of our two clubs could be looking at the drop.
Not an ideal scenario as there are plenty of people at Fencibles that are well liked at Ellerslie and in an ideal world both our clubs would survive to play in Div 1 another year – on that note it’s great to see Fredrik Ljungberg (former Ellerslie captain), Brennen Priestley, Christian Niyonsaba (just signed by Fencibles from Manukau) and Luke Bulay. Fencibles have strengthened their squad since we last played them with quite a few signings – Horace James (not playing today), Matt Chant (from Takapuna), Luke Bulay and Jarrod Young (from Birkenhead), Christian Niyonsaba (from Manukau Utd), and Callen Spawforth (from North Shore). Good luck to both teams tonight and of course make sure you come down early and check out the curtain-raiser as Ellerslie’s young guns try and keep pace with Three Kings for another week in the NRFL Reserves league.
WELCOME TO THE AVE
TODAYS MATCH OFFICIALS Referee: Ben NORMAN AR1: Aaron DAY AR2: Daniel NEVILLE
ELLERSLIE EVENTS MICHAELS AVE COMMUNITY CLEAN UP 7th of July @ 10am - Michaels Ave Reserve QUIZ NIGHT (Run by the Ellerslie Women’s First Team and Reserves) Friday 26th of July @ 7pm - Ellerslie AFC Clubrooms
Round Fixture
Result
Round Fixture
Result
1
vs. Mt Albert Ponsonby
0-2
11
@ Hibiscus Coast
3-1
2
@ Waitemata FC
4-3
12
@ Mt Albert Ponsonby
p/p
3
vs. Forrest Hill Milford
1-2
13
vs. Waitemata FC
0-2
4
@ Fencibles Utd
4-3
14
@ Forrest Hill Milford
1-3
5
vs. Takapuna AFC
1-1
15
vs. Fencibles Utd
06.07
6
@ Waiheke Utd
0-2
16
@ Takapuna AFC
13.07
7
vs. Bucklands Beach
0-4
17
vs. Waiheke Utd
20.07
8
vs. Tauranga City Utd
p/p
18
@ Bucklands Beach
27.07
6-0
19
@ Tauranga City Utd
03.08
CC R1 @ Ngaruawahia Utd 9
@ Three Kings Utd
1-2
20
vs. Three Kings Utd
10.08
10
vs. Bay Olympic
0-3
21
@ Bay Olympic
24.08
1-2
22
vs. Hibiscus Coast
31.08
CC R2 @ Waitakere City
2019 NRFL DIV ONE
FORREST HILL VS ELLERSLIE AFC Saturday saw Ellerslie travel to Becroft Park on a sunny winters day to play league leaders Forrest Hill Milford who hold the record for being the only unbeaten team in the entire NRFL – Ellerslie of course sit at pretty much the opposite end of the table, just above the relegation spots – however the last match between these two sides saw Forrest Hill concede a 1st min goal and then save a penalty only minutes later before scoring two second half goals, including one very late goal to take all three points. Since that thrilling game at Michaels Ave on the 13th of April Forrest Hill have picked up another 7 wins and 2 draws, having only conceded 8 goals in 11 games, while Ellerslie have picked up just 2 wins and a draw with 6 losses – not exactly form lines that lead to a close contest in this game. However Ellerslie have a knack of performing well against better teams when the pressure is really on, not always but more often than not and we took confidence from our close loss against FHM in the first round into this game. That confidence did not seem misplaced when Ellerslie took the lead when Josh Lai pounced on Adam Scott’s clever ball back across goal from a corner. Josh made no mistake with his finished high into the net to grab his first ever goal for Ellerslie’s First Team in his second game this season after returning from US College. It was quite an open game as Forrest Hill continued to give Ellerslie chances to increase their lead, while testing Sahil and our backline regularly at the other end – it seemed just a matter of time before another goal was scored. FHM’s equaliser came from a corner that we didn’t clear completely, Sahil got a decent punch on the initial ball but we were unable to clear the seconds and David Brown (not the ex Auckland City guy) rose highest and headed home to open the home sides scoring. Another headed effort gave Forrest Hill the lead before halftime as the speedy Trent Mayes showed off his aerial ability with a nice finish from a cross in the 33rd minute.
At halftime the coaching staff tinkered with a few tactical things and made a change at left back where “veteran” Michael Glenny came on for Marius who was feeling a little sick and Jordan swapped from right back to left back.If you look at the league table you would see Ellerslie don’t score basket load of goals every week, but with Adam, Rowan, Josh willing to run at players and Dylan and Ta and Aalok providing ammunition we did cause FHM some issues but just couldn’t find the combination to really unlock a chance and with a keeper as experienced and talented as Jacob Spoonley in goal you need more than a half chance to test him.
82 minutes in and we were still only trailing by the one goal so we went for it and changed to three at the back and through on an extra body into the attacking end in the shape of Denny Twigg – he sat in behind an attacking line of Rowan, Josh, Olly (on for Dylan) and Adam Barkley. I think it’s fair to say we turned the screws on Forrest Hill in that last 10 minutes and I think you could see some of the younger FHM players start to make mistakes but again we just couldn’t create that opportunity we needed and in the 93rd minute after Jacob Spoonley had milked a very dubious free kick out of the referee FHM got the icing goal they wanted for their cake as they hit us short (and probably tired) and created an overload down our left flank which left substitute Sean Crombie with an angled shot which he took well to seal the points. It’s hard to keep saying this but if we perform like we did against FHM in our remaining games we will be in pretty decent shape – but we have said this before after our positive showing against FHM in the first round and against Waitakere in the cup – at the end of the day the lads just have to bring an absolute desire to win against Fencibles in our next game, which I’m sure they will! Congrats to Josh on his first goal and Tariro and Aalok who shared MVP honours as they worked tirelessly in midfield.
FORREST HILL VS ELLERSLIE AFC
ELLERSLIE AFC FIRST TEAM Shirt # Player Name
Shirt # Player Name
1
Kyrylo BOLHARYN
27
Tariro MASHONGANYIKA
2
Alexei DAVIES-CAMPBELL
33
Sam TWIGG
8
Adam SCOTT
34
Denny TWIGG
10
Adam BARKLEY
39
Ben SHAW
12
Marius WEIHRAUCH
13
Josh TORRENS
15
Seb POELMAN
COACH: Ryan Shiffman
20
Aalok PAUDEL
ASST: Terry Torrens
21
Dastgeer LAI-SAI
GK COACH: Kris Pinnock
22
Josh LAI
PHYSIO: Aaron Collin
23
Dylan HORGAN
MANAGER: Isaac Jacobs
Shirt # Player Name
Shirt # Player Name
1
Fergus CONNOLLY
12
Liam MENDOZA
1
Nicholas BURKE
13
Jack ALLEN
1
Brendan HALL
14
Scott BOOKER
2
Brennen PRIESTLEY
15
Fredrik LJUNGBERG
3
Sione FA’APOI
16
Jarrod YOUNG
4
Matthew CHANT
17
Luke BULAY
5
Samuel JONES
18
Peter GAROFALAKIS
6
James DAVIES
19
Cullen SPAWFORTH
7
Samuel ROBERTSON
20
Ross BAILEY
8
Troy WATSON
21
Luke SMART
9
Ahmad MOHAMMADI
COACH: Grant ROBERTSON
11
Cheauxyan MAUKAU
Asst: Munith NAIDU
FENCIBLES UTD FIRST TEAM
FORREST HILL VS ELLERSLIE AFC The chase for top spot, and Three Kings who currently hold it, is into it’s 8th week (since we lost against Waiheke) and they have yet to drop serious points other than our 1-0 win against them.
Coming into this game against a FHM team who had managed a draw with Three Kings we ‘loaned’ a few players to the First Team who had a defenders shortage with Seb still out injured and Ben Shaw suspended – so time for the young guns to step up as we fielded a backline of Jacob and Harry as CB’s (a potential insight to Napier’s CB pairing) with Will at leftback and Karar debutising at rightback. FHM were a decent team, athletic and tactically not bad – but I think we had the edge in ability, particularly upfront as Das tormented his young defenders with his footwork and guile. Fittingly it was Das who setup the Ellerslie goal as he received the ball from a throw in and danced around his defender and then tip toed along the goal-line before he cut the ball back for Denny Twigg who slammed the ball home from a tight angle. It was a deserved lead at that point, but we did switch off for the rest of the half and were perhaps lucky not to be behind at halftime, instead we were level as Forrest Hill grabbed a goal in the 30th
min when they managed to get an overload on our left and ended up with a free man who had a shot from a wide angle but found the back of the net with precision finishing. The second half saw a big improvement from Ellerslie and while we didn’t find a winning goal we battled hard and kept a point in our pockets to survive another day to catch up to Three Kings.
Congrats to Max Frear and Allan Falconer who made their debuts and best of luck to Ben Hughes as he transferred on Friday to Metro in search of more game time.
U11 Nationals
You may have seen something about this on our website or on social media this week – the club has been working on this concept for 18 months and we are excited to announce entries are now open for the newest tournament on the football calendar – fitting nicely inbetween the Norwest and Weir Rosebowl Tournaments – for more information please check out our website – www.ellersliefootball.org.nz
FORREST HILL VS ELLERSLIE AFC
ELLERSLIE AFC RESERVES Shirt # Player Name
Shirt # Player Name
1
Ben SMITH
43
Michael GLENNY ©
3
Shukrullah REZAIE
44
Kojo NORKU
7
Karar SOHRABI
9
Max FREAR
11
Josh MARSHALL
19
Minjoo KIM
26
Monju SHOEHEI
28
Harry STANBRIDGE
30
John MURPHY
COACH: Seb Bouvier
31
Will SARGENT
ASST: Grant Marshall
40
Jacob CARROLL
Manager: Isaac Jacobs
Shirt # Player Name
Shirt # Player Name
1
Adam ROSS
36
Oliver HOOLEY
21
Luke SMART
37
Josh HARFORD
22
Matthew DANIELSON
38
Kaine BRADLEY
24
Samuel BRYANS
27
Liam MENDOZA
28
Ajay DHANJEE
29
Troy THOMAS
30
Cole HOLLAND
31
Dan JACKSON
32
Joseph DAN-TYRELL
33
Dikshant KHADKA
Coach: Justin Green
35
Samuel DE VRIES
Asst: Munith Naidu
FENCIBLES UTD RESERVES
For people reading this program digitally you can click on the appropriate App store link above otherwise search Ellerslie AFC in your app store
TABLES & CLUB APP POS
CLUB
PL
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
PTS
1
Three Kings Reserves
14
12
1
1
68
10
58
37
2
Ellerslie AFC Reserves
13
10
2
1
41
8
33
32
3
Bucklands Beach AFC Reserves
14
7
3
4
37
23
14
24
4
Forrest Hill Reserves
13
7
2
4
25
21
4
23
5
Bay Olympic Reserves
13
7
1
5
32
20
12
22
6
Fencibles Reserves
13
6
3
4
33
23
10
21
7
Tauranga City AFC Reserves
13
7
0
6
35
36
-1
21
8
Takapuna Reserves
13
5
1
7
29
40
-11
16
9
Waitemata FC Reserves
14
5
0
9
29
52
-23
15
10
Hibiscus Coast Reserves
13
3
2
8
13
43
-30
11
11
Waiheke Reserves
14
3
1
10
12
32
-20
10
12
Mt Albert Ponsonby Reserves
13
0
0
13
12
58
-46
0
POS
CLUB
PL
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
PTS
1
Forrest Hill Milford NRFL1
12
10
2
0
30
9
21
32
2
Mt Albert Ponsonby NRFL1
12
9
0
3
34
13
21
27
3
Bay Olympic NRFL1
12
8
2
2
30
11
19
26
4
Bucklands Beach AFC NRFL1
14
8
2
4
29
23
6
26
5
Takapuna NRFL1
12
7
3
2
33
19
14
24
6
Three Kings Utd NRFL1
13
6
3
4
22
14
8
21
7
Waiheke Utd AFC NRFL1
14
5
4
5
17
26
-9
19
8
Tauranga City AFC NRFL1
13
5
3
5
19
20
-1
18
9
Waitemata NRFL1
14
5
2
7
28
26
2
17
10
Ellerslie AFC NRFL1
12
3
1
8
15
28
-13
10
11
Fencibles Utd AFC NRFL1
13
0
0
13
20
40
-20
0
12
Hibiscus Coast NRFL1
13
0
0
13
7
55
-48
0
TABLES & TWEETS