LAST KICK LEVELLED SCORES Dramatic Finish To Soccer Cup Final

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31144, 22 August 1966, Page 18

LAST KICK LEVELLED SCORES Dramatic Finish To Soccer Cup Final

With the last kick of the game St Kilda (Dunedin) lived to fight another day when its South Island Chatham Cup final against Western was drawn, one goal and three corners each, after extra time at English Park on Saturday.

The drama-packed match was still undecided after 120 minutes and will be replayed at English Park today.

Until then the game had stuttered and spluttered along, neither side showing much sign of gaining a grip on the play, on its opponent or on itself. A. Brooks had twice shot over the top for Western and Rennie had a curling centre touched on to the bar and over the top by Spraggs, but neither forward line had impressed. Five minutes later Western was on level terms again, and it was Frost, fittingly, who scored. He went up to a corner on the left and headed the ball down and into the net off the post. Play Was In Rut However, any hope that these two goals may spark off both teams to produce smooth, flowing football, never materialised. The play got into a rut of, broken movements, easily lost possession and bad passes, and there it stayed until the end. Only the drama continued. In the 43rd minute the St. Kilda captain and right-half, A. Caldwell, another former Western player, injured a leg and was replaced by B. Turnhout. There were some isolated goalmouth incidents in the second half, with St. Kilda the more dangerous. But Western was once again magnificently served by Spraggs in goal and Frost at centre-half. Frost was given a severe task to hold his young defence together and block St. Kilda’s efforts through the middle, and he did all that was necessary. Spraggs handled the ball brilliantly and twice in the second half cut oiit shots from the wingmen, Rennie and McLean, that looked certain goals. Once he was lucky to turn a shot from N. Cunningham on to the bar and then desperately clutch the rebound as the ball dropped close to the line. Western’s only replies were a header by D. Torkington that went high, a defensive header by Kennedy that drifted inches over his own goal, and weak shots by Almond, Brooks and A. Treadwell. Smith Knocked Out But when St. Kilda was reduced to 10 men after Smith was knocked out in a goalmouth collision, it seemed the luck had finally turned towards Western, Before the end of scheduled time the game might have been made safe when Martin had a shot palmed away by the St. Kilda goal-keeper, M. Barnes. The ball rolled across the goalmouth but Torkington was just unable to get a foot to it with the goal wide open. However, in the first half of extra time, Western grabbed three corners, Kennedy conceding two and B. Slinn one, and Frost had a great header cleared off the line by J. Turnhout. The end for St. Kilda seemed in sight, particularly as a depleted team was obviously feeling the effects of a gruelling game. But last year’s beaten national finalist was not finished. Rennie had a great chance to win the match when B. Turnhout turned the ball into the middle, but the winger miskicked in front of goal. Then Western conceded two corners under pressure, and finally came the lastsecond drama that brought the third and made a replay necessary. Patches Of Team-work Only in patches did either forward line function as units; for the greater part there was little more than individual efforts to test either defence. Brooks worked tremendously hard for Western but he wasted so much good mid-field play with a pass straight to an opponent when he tried to get his winger or centre-forward away. Western lost the match in the last 15 minutes when its defenders, Frost excepted, took too long to clear the ball and tried to play itself out of trouble with short passing. It was all so unnecessary and a frivolous waste of effort. St. Kilda allowed its centreforward Slinn to play a roving game, but too often a player was missing through the middle when the Dunedin team needed an extra man to support an attack. Cunningham, too, lay behind his forwards, and the most danger to Western’s goal came from Rennie and McLean, who continually switched wings in an attempt to unsettle the Western defence. It was partially successful and would have been more so had they received greater support. The mid-field play of both teams was patchy and ragged. Only Cunningham used the ball constructively and even he suffered as did all the others from wasted passes. There were times when the middle of the field was as wide open and empty as a desert, or like a sandwich without filling. And the football was equally as unappetising.

At the end of the scheduled 90 minutes the score was 1-1, and two tired, depleted teams went into half-an-hour of extra time with corners to count.

After another 15 minutes Western was leading by three corners to nil and all they needed to do was to hold out for the last quarter-of-an-hour to reach the national final.

Tlie scores were level, and there was not even time for the corner kick to be taken before the whistle blew. It was all over and a replay was necessary, to find an opponent in the national final on September 3 for the Wellington club, Miramar Rangers, which, also on Saturday, had beaten Ponsonby (Auckland), 2-1, after extra time in the North Island final at Auckland. Although the standard of football in the South Island final was never better than mediocre, the drama of the match was intense. It began 45 minutes before play started and ended only with the last kick.

But St. Kilda, although reduced to 10 men eight minutes from full-time when the former Western player, >B. Smith, was carried off with a neck injury, poured everything into a late gamble to get the vital goal that would have wiped out Western’s advantage in corners. Western defended desperately, denied St. Kilda a goal, but the non-stop pressure on its goal brought something that in the end proved as valuable—three corners. Screwed Off Boot

The first shock came to Western when it learned that T. Haydon had been taken ill and could not play. The second followed soon afterwards when M. Clements, the captain, in the pre-match warm-up, found that his injured foot would not stand up to a hard 90 minutes’ play and also withdrew. Two Late Changes

The last came in the dying seconds. The outside-right, C. Rennie, bore in and drove a fierce shot for the corner. The Western goal-keeper, D. Spraggs, dived, stopped the ball but could not retain possession. Under pressure P. Frost could do no more than lunge a foot at the ball and it screwed off his boot for a corner.

Western was forced to make two late changes, bringing in R. Miller at right-back and J Brock at right-half, moving Frost to centre-half, D. Almond to right-wing and C. Martin to inside-right. Twenty minutes after play started Western received its third, and nearly most disastrous, upset. The referee, Mr J. Armstrong (Wellington), harshly penalised Frost for a tackle on the side edge of the penalty area and awarded St. Kilda a penalty, which W. Kennedy coolly and expertly converted.