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Te Awamutu 6 v Matamata Swifts 1
Saturday August 10, 2002
Waikato 1st Division

Matamata completed their fixtures for the 2002 season on a huge downer as a weakened team suffered a hiding in the mud at Te Awamutu. The Swifts managed to get eleven players on the field but it was a far from full strength side and a result such as the one that ensued was always on the cards.

Things could have been much different if Matamata had built on their promising start. The Swifts were the dominant side for the first twenty minutes and even took the lead during this period. Garry Ewing, in his final match for the Swifts before retirement, lobbed the ball home from the edge of the area for his first and only goal of the season. The Swifts had a couple of excellent chances to extend their lead against a shell-shocked home side before they decided to start playing like idiots.

Te Awamutu's first goal was a complete fluke but it was enough to get them going and from then on there was only going to be one winner. Matamata conceeded three more first-half goals, all of which said more about their defending (or, rather, their lack of it) than the attacking abilities of their opposition. Still, Te Awamutu made no mistake when gifted their opportunities and deserved their lead.

After the break it was more of the same. Te Awamutu added a couple of goals to their tally while the Swifts grew more and more frustrated at their own inability to compete along with the, quite frankly, bizarre performance from the person masquerading as a referee.

At least the team can now rest for a few months before thinking about the season of 2003. Hopefully lessons will be learnt from results such as this one, with the biggest task for the new season being the quest to become less of a soft touch defensively.

Other Results:
Melville 1 v Claudelands 3, Unicol 2 v Tokoroa 5,
Wanderers 1 v Ngaruawahia 1, West Hamilton 0 v Cambridge 1.

Matamata Swifts Season Stats

Full Table (as at August 10):