Wharfies women a title contender

By Grant Stephen

Wellington United and Waterside Karori are the only title contenders in the Women’s Central League Football competition.

United maintained their onepoint buffer over Waterside with a 4-1 win over Taradale on 5 August.

Waterside pipped Petone 2-1 with a brace to Nikki Furukawa who got on the score sheet once again.

Nikki now has eight goals for the season and is fifth on the Golden Boot leaderboard.

Her teammate Kaley Ward, however, has 10 goals for the season and is joint runner up currently.

In other matches in the round, Seatoun prevailed 2-1 over Mana Coach Services North Wellington and Palmerston North Marist had a strong 4-0 result over Victoria University.

In round 15 of the Men’s Central Football League, the local teams did not do so well.

The much-anticipated match between Western Suburbs and Waterside Karori was a classic encounter.

Tomas Alvarado delivered once again for Wharfies with a 19th minute goal, but Wests returned service thanks to a brace to Captain, Malik Smith in the 23rd minute and one final strike with just 10 minutes to go until full time.

The final score was 2-1 to Wests and fourth spot in the league for the time being at least.

Karori are in seventh place and the beach towel and sunscreen for the national summer league are not looking so positive at the moment.

With a Chatham Cup semi-final in Hamilton on 19 August the Wharfies could be forgiven for being distracted though.

TFS North Wellington had a miserable time at home and were dispatched 5-0 by a ruthless Wellington Olympic side.

Olympic had obviously taken their must improve mandate to heart after two recent losses and their task was made even easier with Norths being down to 10 men for the last hour of play.

The norths’ youngsters actually played some good football and will need to follow their own must improve philosophy if they want the wooden spoon to be delivered to Whanganui Athletic rather than Alex Moore Park.

To add insult to injury, Norths surrendered the O’Brien Shield in the process and its tenure at Wakefield Park may well be a long one.

Whanganui Athletic definitely earned a better report card this week as they stole the lead with an early goal over Napier City Rovers in Napier.

It took a 54th minute penalty to Rovers to even the score and that’s where it ended at one a piece. Athletic will no doubt be ecstatic with the point as they are only three points behind North Wellington