Plains Rangers Edgecumbe shocked home team Tauranga City United by grabbing all
the spoils despite being on the rack in the first half.
TCU opened the game very strongly. They put together many well constructed
attacks, aided by the breeze, but could not capitalise. Rangers’ defence and keeper
Matt Aberhart worked overtime to thwart them. Left half Brendan Cusack found
himself being a fifth defender as his opposite overlapped regularly down the flank.
Late in the half Richie Nillesen set the home team back on their heels when he ran onto a
through ball, outstripped the defence and calmly slotted the ball past the advancing
keeper. Rangers took the 1 - 0 lead into half time, but knew the onslaught would
resume after the break.
It did, but as Tauranga City pushed forward, their moves were increasingly snuffed
out by the defence and midfield. Rangers counterattacked with increasing confidence
and started finding some big holes in the home team. After fifteen minutes, a well
struck Nillesen corner beat the keeper and Cusack made sure of the goal by burying it
into the net from close range. From there on, Tauranga could sense it was not going to
be their day. Even with a couple of ex-national league strikers on the field they got no
change out of the Rangers defence, with player of the day David Dennis and Harley
Delacy in top form. Delacy then rubbed a big dose of salt into the wound, a well
judges long free kick was superbly back headed past the Tauranga keeper by Aaron
Muggeridge to make the final score Tauranga City United 0, Plains Rangers 3.
This was a total team effort by Rangers, making up for their showing last week. The
centre midfield duo of Bas Overdevest and Dean Butterworth epitomised the team’s
attitude with a non-stop display of graft that eventually saw them gain control of their
area of the park.
This Saturday Rangers are involved in the annual Best Insulation tournament in
Rotorua, as the league takes a break.