Burndale not overawed by foe

Press, 21 July 1989, Page 26

Burndale not overawed by foe

By

GARY BIRKETT

The new All Whites assistant coach, Keith Pritchett, could be in for a nasty shock when his Waitakere City national league soccer side faces Burndale United, of the southern league, in a Chatham Cup quarter-final in Auckland tomorrow.

Waitakere, in its first year in the national league, has climbed to sixth place at the halfway stage of the competition and Pritchett will be confident of ousting Burndale from the Cup.

Waitakere has beaten Mount Wellington (twice), Christchurch United and Napier this year but the Burndale player-coach, Graeme Archer, is not overawed by tomorrow’s clash.

"My players are very keen to do well and if we can lift out game a bit we could cause an upset. We are going to be positive and not stack our defence with 11 players and hope for a breakaway.”

Archer has talked to the United and All Whites coach, lan Marshall, about Waitakere and got some useful pointers. "lan gave me some helpful hints and we have been working on them in training. We

will be looking to close their players down and have been working on what to do when they have the ball.”

Burndale is in third place in the southern league and pressing hard for the league title. Its experienced strike force of John Hanson and Jeff Hawker has notched up 23 goals between them while Steve Toohey, the New Zealand junior captain, and Jimmy Small have been impressive in the midfield. Archer believes that quartet will press strongly for places in the Canterbury Winfield Shield squad which will play Otago on August 23. While he expects Christchurch United players to form the basis of the squad Archer said the selectorcoach, Terry Conley, should look at southern league players who have been in strong form.

“I don’t feel that a United side would represent the best players in Canterbury. A few of them are getting over the hill and the Canterbury side should be picked on form. United is not playing as well as last year and there is room for outside players.” Victory over Waitakere would further reinforce Archer’s comments and he will have an injury free

squad to choose from. Unfortunately that will not be the case for Mr Marshall. The left back, Kevin Calder, has already been ruled out of its quarter-final clash with Waterside-Karori at Queen Elizabeth II Park on Sunday and four others players, Garry Lund (neck), Mike Fullen (thigh), Keith Braithwaite (hamstring) and Allan Carville (groin and knee) are in doubt.

Calder has a thigh injury and will probably be replaced by one of the second team defenders, although a final decision on the make-up of the United team will not be made until tomorrow.' Waterside will also not be at full strength. The national league struggler has lost its leading scorer, Jimmy Clark, and a defender Brendan Mclntyre, through suspension and Danny Blackburn is injured. The Waterside coach, Dave Boardman, has already been quoted as saying the Cup meant little to his side but Mr Marshall is not taking that seriously. "They can’t win the league so will be keen to do well in the Cup. We are not falling for those comments. If we believed that then we would deserve to lose.”