Knockout

Lynn-Avon United 3, Papakura City 0
Ken Maunder Park, Auckland, May 6 2012

Today was the first round of the New Zealand wide Women’s Knockout Cup. This year there are 28 teams battling it out for national supremacy. While fifteen are from Auckland, entries range from Dunedin’s Roslyn Wakari in the Deep South, through to Kerikeri High School representing the Far North. As the name suggests, it’s a standard cup format with winning teams progressing to the next round and losers goneburger until next year. The final is currently scheduled for August 26th.

Given the wealth of Auckland sides vying for the crown, and clubs being grouped into regional conferences to start with, I was pretty spoilt for choice. After much thought and many changes of heart (I used to be indecisive but now I’m not sure), I opted to head over to West Auckland’s Ken Maunder Park to witness top Northern Premiership side and nine time cup winners Lynn-Avon United take on South Auckland’s Papakura City – a solid side that plays in the next tier down from LA, the Auckland Football Federation/Northern Football Federation Conference.

In the context of the whole round, with many of the big guns running away with big wins over lesser opponents, the 3-0 score line here was a veritable thriller. Papakura could easily have had a lead early in the match after they rattled a shot off the crossbar and over the course of the whole match, gave a good account of themselves all things considered. However it was defensive frailties and too much possession easily squandered that saw them undone. Lynn-Avon looked head and shoulders the better of the two sides and probably buttoned off a bit after taking a 2-0 lead into the break.

An enjoyable afternoon in brilliant sunshine though and if you don’t get your butt along to round two and support this very special competition, you really are missing out.