Write-up By Henry

Elite 0 - 3 SV CIna


Stoke’s Valley, I hope it isn’t the same place that Stoke’s brew their beverages but if so they should pack up shop and move out as they’re probably the only worthwhile thing still there. This is very harsh, but it was hard not to feel slightly salty after the injustices brought upon us this day. I’d love to say at least the sun was shining or something but alas it was pretty dreary and the pitch muddy as from previous downpour.
 
My memory of the sequences of play from the first half is a bit lacking given the time that has lapsed since, but it was pretty even man to man across the pitch, but we seemed unable to translate our midfield possession into a cohesive attack in the final third. A few wayward shots were had but nothing ever looked like it was going to hit the back of the net. I thought that our hunger in the 50-50s wasn’t there as much as in previous weeks, except for Decs who was balls to the wall as always.
 
The second half involved some drama indeed. On came the tradie referee who had to wear his high vis jersey and boots to show us that he’s both a tradie and plays football. This guy had a temper, and an ability to conveniently not see enough to call penalties or fouls against his own side. Greg made a few comments on the sideline as anybody does but he responded with blasphemous F-word language and basically telling him to shut up. Back to the football, we went 1-0 down to a well-worked goal by the opposition, and we retaliated with our own secret weapon CJ up front. However, CJ was thwarted by a slide-tackle that took out his legs with no ball contact in the box, with a clear goal-scoring OPPORTUNITY, and yet no whistle. Sorry CJ but the collapse of a similar nature 10 minutes later was milking it a little, foul or no foul hahaha.

Oh yeah, they scored two more goals somewhere towards the end as we kind of fell apart and tried more offensive formations and risky plays. Final score 3-0 to Stoke’s Valley
 
Points are awarded as follows: 1 point to everybody except me for not being slack-asses.

But actually - 
Decs - 3
Damo - 2
Shane - 1

 

Write-up by Declan
Elite 4 - 0 IBU

Pre-match.
The omens were good when no stupid emails were sent on game day, the squad turned up on time bolstered by some of the Arms stalwarts and it was a cracking evening with no wind. Adam also remembered the line-up correctly and there was no late changes. WTF was going on?


First half
After last weeks mud fest the Elite got stuck in straight from the whistle not giving the Piglets any time on the ball and dominating possession. After 5 mins Dec took it down on the edge of the box, cut inside and smashed it off the crossbar and Niall laughed his ass off. Jay then took his turn with a thunderbastard of a shot that nearly broke the bar.
We were dominating possession, getting the ball up early to CJ and Clem who were holding it up and getting it wide to the wingers. Saji seemed to earn about 7 corners in the first half an hour which generally resulted in a shit corner to the edge of the box and nothing happening.
The PIglets were relying on long balls to their speedsters up front but they weren’t really causing any problems. NIall was regretting not bringing his smokes with him
Ollie came on and instantly changed the game was clear through one-on-one with the keeper but selflessly passed to CJ who somehow sidefooted it wide. Maybe he was thinking “I’d never pass in that situation”.  
Finally the breakthrough happened came after another shit corner found Jay at the edge of the box and he smashed a volley past the helpless keeper. 2 minutes later and we had our second. Some neat setup ended up with Adam assisting CJ (with a mishit shot??) and CJ toepoked into the bottom corner

Second half:
The second half started a bit sloppily and we lost a bit of intensity and probably a little of the outstanding quality we had shown in the first half. They get a little more possession without really creating anything. NIall was definitely busier showing the handling ability of a snake by hoofing several clearances out when he could have caught the ball.

We were still creating the better chances but it wasn’t until we broke from their corner led by Damo which ended up with Ollie slotting it away at the back post. Game over!.
Other notable events in the second half included Damo performing a bellyflop trapping of the ball, Rory poleaxing one of their players after a missed header, Everybody abusing the ref for being terrible and Gav shouldering the ball clear for a corner.
Clem finally got what he deserved when he dispatched a shot into the bottom corner from about 20 metres. I think he might have smiled.


Points:
F**k me this is hard. I only remembered I was doing the write up when I got subbed 10 mins from the end so I’m just going to spread them out. No one really had a bad game

Jay - 1 - Cracking goal and terrorised their defence. Where was this guy last week? May need some fitness advice from Clem.

Clem - 1 - It didn’t drop for him first half but that didn’t stop him running his bollox off for the team linking up play and finally got off the mark for the season.

CJ - 1 - Led the line brilliantly and took his goal well

Adam - 1 - Bossed midfield with crucial assist for the second. Won 2 headers in the second half that actually ended up going to a teammate. Maybe his 50p piece head is losing its edges.

Damo - 1 - Same as normal. Crunching tackles and wandering upfield

Jase - 1 -  Cool as a cucumber and distributed brilliantly

Write-up by Nik
Elite 0 - 1 Sealords

On Christmas eve, in the winter of 1914, an armistice was agreed between British and German troops in the trenches near Ypres. They decided not to fire at each other for the day. Each side peeked over the edge of their trenches, popped their heads up, and no-one was shot.
 
Then, in a moment of pure madness, a football was kicked from the British side into No Man’s Land, and IT WAS ON. They cleared the bodies off the pitch and kicked off. Fifty players on each side, gangrene, shitty turn-of-the-century boots, bomb craters everywhere, probably some pretty serious shell-shock and PTSD, and A LOT OF MUD.
 
Our game was kind of like that. Really muddy. And one angry Irishman. Imagine being in the army with Decs: ‘get the f*ck over that hill,’ ‘f*ckin keep shooting,’ ‘stop f*cking shooting,’ ‘pass the bread, simple passes,’ etc.
 
We were fairly depleted due to the long weekend (thanks Jesus/Romans), so we had 10 regulars and a Scotsman called Gavin. Oh and the resurrected one himself, Jesus Crespo. But this was Good Friday, not Monday, and Friday went badly for Jesus.
 
Our enemy was Karori. Dirty shitty old Karori. Cold, damp, boring, should be annexed from Wellington old Karori. Just jokes Karori. To be fair they were a pretty good bunch of dudes, I thought.
 
Commander General Steve-o had the whistle, which he duly blew, and we were off!
 
What ensued was a quality advertisement for the “beautiful game”. The first half went pretty well in patches, when we got the passes going into space, but to be honest I can’t remember us creating any clear chances. But neither did they, and we were pretty happy to finish the half 0-0, since we were playing into the wind.
 
I just figured we would ping balls at their goal for most of the second half, and some of them would go in. Unfortunately by that point, however, the field, or at least the middle of it, was looking like the aforementioned No Man’s Land. It was fudging hard to know if the ball was going to skid on or stick in the water/mud. Many dodgy sliders were put in by both sides. Steve-o ruled his battlefield calmly, authoritatively, thereby preventing any escalation in hostilities. Well done that man.
 
Long story short, we just couldn’t get any passes going in the final third, let alone dozens of pinged shots at their goal. We did make a few chances, but we just couldn’t really get that final ball right.
 
But our defence did a great job at keeping them quiet too, and with time running out we were really pushing for the one goal that would surely settle this turgid affair.
 
And then, with about two minutes on the clock, one of their stocky Three Stooges-looking midfielders made a great run and was finally able to beat Rori (who had a solid game) at his near post. Bugger it all to hell.
 
It was a shame, because we were having our best period of the half at that point, and definitely looked the more likely to score.
 
CJ almost scored from a free kick, the last kick of the game, but it just went over the bar. Just one of those days I guess. A draw would have been fair – I think on balance we even slightly deserved the win. But that’s just the way the chocolate egg crumbles sometimes. It didn’t feel great, but we’ll beat them on the flippidy-flip!
 
Points:
Pretty hard to pick today actually. Some of the first half was a bit of a blur after I got fully balled on the side of the head. I thought the whole defence did a super job, and the centre of the pitch was an absolute nightmare, so those in the middle did really well too.
 
2 – Angus. Cleaned up those durrrty Karorians all damn day.
2 – CJ. Formed a bloody good looking partnership with young Angus. Like Yoga and Luke.
1 – Damo. He was everywhere, man.
1 – Decs. Battled really hard in the middle, which looked more like a peat bog than a footy pitch.
 
Happy Easter from ’Straya!

Write-up by Damo


Elite 2 - 6 Lower Hutt
 
 
After a cracking start to the 2018 season the Elite were looking to back up the goal fest from Melrose to make it 2 wins from 2.
However this was not to be the case…. Well for Lower Hutt it was, but the Elite might as well have stayed home.
 
Turning up to as Crispy would put it to “the field of dreams”, the sun was shining, banter was flowing and the usual warm up routines were being performed (minus Jay who again was wandering!)


The game started with high hopes, the Elite playing some good ball to feet football and opening up the opposition out wide.
Less than 10 minutes in and some acrobatics from Jay lead to Greg open on the edge of the box to shank a left foot half volley home. 1-0 to the Elite.
Taking the lead early (not something the Elite are used to) didn’t do much to settle the ship…. And the rest of the half went shite, shit , ah for f*ck sake, and that was 4-1 down going into half time.
 
Heads in the hole, the Elite had a half time chat with Adam firing some instructions, and hopefully a better start to the second half, we can do this boys!
The start to the second half was as the Elite ended the first… shit. (I think we missed the half time lollies :( )
 
Some live footage from the first half: