6 April 1999
The Marlborough Express
by Matt Porter
Cropcare Marlborough United were knocked out in the first round [sic] of the Chatham Cup yesterday, but still showed some encouraging signs in their 2-1 loss to Christchurch Rangers.
Rangers came to the lush turf at Athletic Park with a number of pre-season games, including the Rangers tournament in Christchurch under their belt. Unlike Marlborough, the Christchurch side are not included in the eight-man Southern League which kicks off next month, so their focus was firmly on the cup. [?]
Conversely Marlborough have not long named their squad and have had only the one half-hearted hit-out against a local selection the weekend before.
Rangers did not take long to put their preparation to good effect. With five minutes on the clock impressive striker Antonio Goncalves headed in a corner past the outstretched arms of local keeper John Guardiola to put Rangers ahead 1-0.
For the next ten minutes, apart from the odd foray into Rangers territory, Marlborough were restricted to defending the opening exchanges. Damien Adams showed up as a continual thorn in Rangers' side with some aggressive tackling.
After 17 minutes veteran keeper Allan Stroud was troubled when confronted with a one-on-one with Marlborough striker Dave Pestno. Stroud, showing all his guile, advanced out of his box to rush Pestno's shot and save a goal.
In the 25th minute some willing play from midfielder Matt Costello spilled over when he was pulled up for a verbal warning after going in hard for a slide tackle.
Five minutes later Costello channelled his aggression for a booming shot from far out which took a deflection off a Rangers defender to find the back of the net, making it all square at 1-1.
Rangers showed the composure of a team that has played together and controlled the ball nicely among their back three before breaking out up field to effect a corner which was well taken in the air by Guardiola.
Five minutes from the break Rangers took another corner and this time they made sure of it with Shem Banbury [sic] climbing high to slam the header home to make it 2-1 - the final score of the match.
In the second spell both teams persisted with the ploy of going aerial with the ball. This played into the hands of both sets of tall defenders, none more so than Rangers' man-of-the-match Gerard Killick. Built more like a rugby number eight, Killick was dominant in the air, but his mobility around the track was not tested.
Marlborough's defensive pairing was equally as sound. Adams continued to impress with his aggressive harrying in tandem with man-of-the-match Fenton McKay.
Desperate to score Marlborough opened it up in the last quarter. Replacement winger Richard Vercoe placed some nice crosses into the box where young midfielder Joe Lupi came into his own.
The 17-year-old, dwarfed by the tall defenders around him, put on a classy show. He appeared to have the ball on a string and his sleight-of-foot often had the big men bewildered.
Fittingly, Lupi was zeroing in on the Rangers' goal mouth when the final whistle went to the obvious relief of Rangers' coach Fred Simpson who praised Marlborough's performance.
"They (Marlborough) kept fighting, they kept us very honest. They were hard and showed a lot of tenacity."
Marlborough coach Paul Ferguson was just happy to have the solid work out.
"We were essentially using this as a pre-season for our Southern League campaign, I think we did enough out there to know we can compete with most teams.
"We'll take a lot of heart from that result against Rangers who are one of the more favoured sides in Christchurch."
Ferguson praised the defensive work of Adams, the determination of Costello and the class of Lupi.
Marlborough has a series of three pre-season games starting with the away clash against Woolston this Saturday before the League opener against Southland at Athletic Park on May 8.