Rd 8 - V Naenae, Saturday 24 May

Write-up by Crespo  (Sent as a PDF...seriously)

Newtown Park the place where Elite dreams have both been made and broken. Whenever you play

in the Orange and Blue this is the place where you most look forward to playing.

Twitter was abuzz pre game with spot odds available for certain players for the game against 

Naenae. 

CJ to score $1.50, Adam to score $3.00, Niall to score $6.00 and Dave a clean sheet $2.65.

(@Crespo10nz – well worth a follow) 

Kick off was delayed a couple of mins to allow the big crowd to arrive which was stuck in the 

Newtown Park traffic.

It was a big game for the Elite, coming off back to back losses and the first time in 20 odd games we 

had gone 90 mins without a goal we knew we had to get our season back on track.

The Elite were forced into a couple of late changes with Rafter having trouble with his usually 

reliable car and Jessiman doing a no show until half time as he was too busy playing with 

Buzzlightyear for Angus’s 4th Birthday.

Fowler was given the arms band for his last game for the Elite prior to taking up a 3 month trial with 

the same professional European club that CJ played for in 2002. 

Kick off eventuated and the first 45 mins pretty much matched the weather. There was only one 

team really trying to play football but Naenae to their credit played to the conditions and resorted to 

a couple of tactics common in the oval ball code Kicking for territory and the good old up and under.

There were a couple of good lead up plays which resulted in the Naenae keeper making a couple of 

good saves but all and all the game pretty much played in the middle of the field.

Half time was called and the Elite made their way to the changing rooms for a half time chat. I wasn’t 

privy to the half time speech but whatever was said seemed to have the desired effect. 

The Elite game back out with more energy, passion and decided that they were going to assert 

themselves on the relegation threatened Naenae.

The Elite pushing forward pounced on a Naenae error. Nick took off down the left getting in behind 

their defence. He squared a lovely ball to our striker Andrew who took his time, picked his spot and 

slotted it nicely 5m above the crossbar. 

Frustrations were beginning to surface for the Elite with the Ref being told in no uncertain terms to 

start calling it how we see it .

Momentum Changer..

Finally dead lock was broken with another cross from the left, this time CJ drew the defence with a 

‘decoy run’ and Adam trapped the ball on the edge of the box and riffled it in of the left hand post. 1 

– 0 Elite.

A couple of mins later the Elite win a corner. A PIN point corner from CJ found the unmarked Stevo 

who rose like a Salmon (the fish not the team who got humped 9-0 after us) and finished with a 

cracking header. Stevo then peels away to CJ for the man love moment of the game at the corner 

flag. 

Cory got on the end of another cross from Adam and calmy slotted with his left make it 3 zip and 

with 10mins to go CJ sends in a freekick from 40 yards out which sails into goal for a 4 nil lead.

A suitable Eto goal celebration from our old timer who then decided that was enough and took his 

place on the bench. (congrats on the 50th goal)

Job done, game over and back to the clubrooms more a few quiets and a replay of the game. 

MVP points

3 – Chris Cairns for making it on expensive day for the TAB. Pretty much all spot odds were paid out 

on.

3 –Adam. Made an impact when you came on. Scored the all important first goal to break the 

deadlock, provided an assist for Corys and took a dive to set up the free kick for CJ to score his 50th

2 – Stevo. Another stellar performance at the back. Pretty much made our keeper redundant and 

scored a cracking goal with your head.

1 – Cory Played well stopping any momentum they had in the middle of the park and got off the 

nudey run.