SOUTHERN LEAGUE St Kilda Beaten; Now Caversham Favourite

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 9

SOUTHERN LEAGUE St Kilda Beaten; Now Caversham Favourite

Caversham won the top-of-the-table clash yesterday with St Kilda-Momington and is now firm favourite to take the southern league, first division championship, for the first time.

Magnificently led on attack by M. Ferguson, Caversham beat St Kilda, 4-2, at the Caledonian ground, Ferguson getting three of his side’s goals.

Although St Kilda has rer tained the lead, its margin has now been cut to one point over Caversham and Technical, both of whom have extra matcher to play. St Kilda will complete its programme at English Park next Saturday, against New Brighton. Caversham has three games—Western (September 12), Technical (September 19) and New Brighton (September 26), the latter two at English Park—and Technical has two—Rangers (September 12) and Caversham. Play-off Series

Apart from taking the title and the $5OO first prize if it wins the southern league, Caversham would be eligible to take part in the national league play-off series. The club has applied to take part and there are indications now that it will do so.

The probability is that Caversham will combine with Dunedin Technical and RoslynWakari.

St Kilda’s hopes of taking part in the series, as Dunedin United in combination with Dunedin City and Northern, have now largely disappeared, and it may yet have difficulty holding on to second place in view of Technical’s strong challenge. One of the vital matches still to be played is that between Technical and Caversham, while Brighton also will have a big say in the outcome, having to play St Kilda and Caversham. Northern Is Last

The club to be relegated was also found yesterday when Northern went down by the only goal scored by J. Bunyan, to Roslyn - Wakari Ironically, although Northern has been prepared to loin St Kilda in a combination for national league purposes, it would not, as Dunedin City did, transfer its players to St Kilda. The move has neither saved Northern from relegation or helped St Kilda to win the league title. Cavershaw scored twice in the

first three minutes, Ferguson getting both, to upset St Kilda yesterday. Although the latter reduced the arrears before halftime and resumed strongly with the wind behind it, Caversham regained control, and went to 4-1 through Ferguson and A. Kirkham. The scorers for St Kilda, which finished the match with 10 men after B. Kenworthy was sent off, were D. Downie, from a penalty, and B. Swales. Results and table: Rangers 2, Christchurch City 2; Technical 2, Shamrock 1; New Brighton 3, Western 1: St Kilda 2, Caversham 4; Northern 0. Roslyn-Wakari 1.

(City forfeited its victory over Roslyn for fielding an inelegible player and the match was awarded to Roslyn.)

Win After Long Walt New Brighton, at long last, got back into a winning mood for the first time since June 20 with its 3-1 victory over Western. W. Quirke got two of the

seaside™ goals and K. Doornenbal the other, while S. Smith scored for Western.

It was a slow-moving, ponderous performance from both clubs, but Brighton had the edge throughout and deserved its long<-awaited win. Technical nearly "threw away" its victory over Shamrock by the forwards inability to beat a strong defence, and in particular a fine goal-keeper. P. Straw, in the first naif. Technical hammered the Shamrock gaol iwthout scoring and it was Shamrock who took the lead in the fifty-seventh minute by T. Conley.

It took a hectic goalmouth scramble to bring Technical the equaliser throuan I. Marshall, after which P. Kay got the winner in the dying stages. Christchurch City’s newcomer. B. Hardman, brought his tally of goals to equal that of his appearances, when he netted City’s two against Rangers. He had opened his scoring the previous week. But Rangers got the equaliser with three minutes to go, P. Jarman netting the ball and thus making his tally three goals in two matches.

Rangers had led at half-time with a header from M. Parker after 20 minutes. Hardman's two goals were both fine shots, the first from 35 yards, the second from the edge of the penalty area.

P W D L F A Pts St Kilda 17 10 2 5 36 28 22 Cv'sham 15 9 3 3 38 20 21 Tech. . 16 10 1 5 30 20 21 Sham . 18 9 2 7 30 23 20 Brigh. . 16 6 5 5 30 24 17 City 18 6 5 7 27 25 17 Roslyn . 18 5 5 8 25 42 15 Western 17 4 5 8 23 28 13 Rangers 17 3 7 7 23 32 13 North'n 18 4 3 11 25 45 11