It was another exciting weekend of action in the ISPS Handa Premiership as Auckland City opened up a narrow lead while several other results also caught the eye.

Below are the thoughts of some of the coaches and players on what went down.

Auckland City captain Angel Berlanga on going top after defeating the Wellington Phoenix Reserves 3-1....

"You have to be happy with a win like this because we are playing well but when you have chances you can regret it if you don't put them away.

"The players who came on from the bench gave something to the team and were really helpful for the squad.

"I think week-by-week we're improving a bit, are playing a bit better and we're growing as a team."

Canterbury United coach Lee Padmore on being held 2-2 at home by Hawke’s Bay United….

“We certainly had to dig deep, we needed to be resilient and relentless defensively. I think our goalkeeper has had an outstanding game, Danny Knight was unbelievable today. But, at the same time, we created chances ourselves and caused problems on the counter attack consistently. I thought that only one team was going to win it towards the end but it’s a point hard-earned.

“Harris Zeb is an exciting player, he’s a local boy that needs to be pushing for a start. He’s coming off the back of an injury and we’re all about playing these young boys. He showed his real spark and energy with the ball but there’s some work he has to do around the game to earn himself a spot in the team that we keep working with him on. But he’s a undoubted talent and somebody that we want to push on and make sure he goes as far as he possibly can in the game.

“I think Hawke’s Bay will feel hard done by with a point because of their possession and they had a lot of shots from outside the area but we thought we could have snuck the three points as well so a draw is probably about fair.

“We’re on five points from four games and ideally we’d want 12 but it’s five points better than zero and we’ll go into next week away at Team Wellington trying to get three points again.”
 

Hawke's Bay United coach Chris Greatholder (Photosport)

Hawke’s Bay United coach Chris Greatholder on his side’s thrilling draw at Canterbury United….

“I thought it was an exciting game, although I didn’t enjoy too much of that second half to be honest, my heart was in my mouth. It’s a little bit bittersweet because I think we’re maybe a bit disappointed not to win the game. But, at the same time, both sides created some good chances and it was a good arm wrestle, played in really tough conditions with the heat.

“We got into good areas and created good opportunities so we’re a bit disappointed that we didn’t score more than the two goals. But, at the same time, it’s a tough place to come and we’ll take the positives, take the point and move on.

“We didn’t want to change too much at half-time because, apart from the first five or ten minutes, we dominated most aspects of the game. We had a wee plan around the 60^th-minute mark, we were going to tweak a few things if it wasn’t going our way, but we scored just before that. It was about how quickly we were moving the ball to our wing backs, we felt we wanted to overload the wide areas as Canterbury are quite narrow as a defensive back four so, if we’re moving the ball quickly then we’re wanting to get them in behind. If we’re moving it slowly then we wanted to tuck in and create one-twos and try to play through them. And we did that with the link-up goal to get us back in the game, we were really pleased with that.

“We’re satisfied with how we’re doing, I think if we’d have won today then we would have had a fantastic start to the season. This league is tough, Tasman have just beaten Team Wellington and you can also see that from how other results have gone in the first three rounds. It’s really competitive and I don’t think you can take points for granted anywhere. It’s a good league and it’s so far, so good for us. There’s more to come from the group I think but we’re tracking okay.”
 

Waitakere United coach Paul Hobson (Photosport)

Waitakere United coach Paul Hobson on a 1-1 draw against ten-man Eastern Suburbs….

“It was an interesting game, I thought we were pretty even in the first half and then obviously playing against ten men in the second half we found them quite hard to break down. But we had a big chance at the end and if you win 2-1 then everybody is happy. But I don’t think we really did enough in the second half to win it.

“We play Southern next week at home and just want to keep this little bit of an unbeaten run going. Hopefully we’re getting better in each game, we’re a little bit of the underdogs going into this after previous seasons but I think we’re getting better so if we can possibly pick up three points there it will be fantastic.”

Eastern Suburbs assistant coach Kane Wintersgill on battling for a draw with ten men….

“Obviously, you never go into a game wanting to draw but considering the circumstances it was a decent result. Obviously the red card was a massive turning point, I thought we were good in the first half and had the better of the chances and more of the ball and the wind definitely helped that. But the red card was a turning point and at that stage it then goes into how best to get a result. The boys worked very, very hard and thankfully we came out with a result of some form.

“The boys adapted very well in the second half and just got on with the job. That’s all you can ask so we were very proud of them today.”
 

Eastern Suburbs fullback Dylan de Jong (Photosport)

Eastern Suburbs fullback Dylan de Jong on grinding out a point….

“It wasn’t the result we wanted but we’ll definitely take it. Playing with ten men in that second half and into the wind the whole time really made it difficult for us. The boys battled well and we’ll take a draw this week.

“At half-time we said that’s the call the ref has made, we have to accept it and move on, not make any excuses and battle on for 45 minutes. Even with ten men we felt that we were good enough to get a result or a goal at least.”

Article added: Tuesday 26 November 2019