Taradale toast Fed finish

Monday, September 6, 2010 10:09

Taradale Association Football Club were in the throes of their 50th anniversary celebrations on Saturday night when they got wind that their Fed team had finished third on the table after the last round of matches.

"It certainly added a bit of flavour to the night because we have some young guys in the team," coach Jamie Hall told SportToday (more below).

Dale clung to the rung Lotto Federation League ladder after Palmerston North End pipped Red Sox Manawatu 4-3 in the Skoglund Park derby.

A frustrated Sox coach, Dave Harris, said it appeared his troops took the game lightly.

"We were pretty average at the back," said Harris, lamenting conceding two quick goals to North End, who scored soon after Sox had equalised.

Dwayne Blackett, Richard Armstrong and Michael Sheridan scored for Sox while William Hodge (hattrick) and Nathan Cooksley got on the card too.

Said North End coach Rhys Hodge: "We played them off the park, only one side was in it."

In the game of the reserves, Napier City Rovers drew 2-2 with Palmerston North Marist at a dry Park Island, Napier.

Coach John McCarthy described it as a typical game of two halves after the visitors won the toss and chose to play into the stiff southerly.

Nick Matheson and Vinnie Latham found the net as the Rovers went into the breather 2-0 up but woodenspooners Marist had enough fuel in their tank to equalise with the wind behind them.

"I had seven players on Friday night and then nine this morning before Terry O'Neil, a mentor and good friend, got players for us to be competitive," McCarthy said of his predominantly young charges from Napier Boys' High School, who had just finished a week-long Lotto New Zealand Secondary Schools Tournament in Napier and other tourneys around the country.

Plagued with player shortage, McCarthy, whose side finished above Marist, will do some soul searching with the Napier club's board on whether they should continue footing it in the Fed League next season.