Friday, October 1, 2010

Tasmania finishes at Nationals with two defeats

Tasmania’s Boys’ Under-15s went down narrowly to Victoria Country today in the final match at this year’s Nationals in Coffs Harbour.

Tasmania trailed 2-0 but fought back with two goals before eventually succumbing 3-2 to the Victorians.

Francis Kenyi scored two fine goals for Tasmania to put them back in contention after they had conceded two soft goals.

The winning goal for Victoria was somewhat bizarre. It came from a long throw-in that bounced inside the 6-yard box. The Tasmania keeper got the slightest of touches to the ball before it crossed the line and that meant it was a goal. If no-one had touched the ball, it would simply have been a goal-kick.

Tasmania’s coach, Gary Slicer, described his side’s performance as magnificent.

“We showed great heart and great spirit and it was a magnificent performance by the boys,” Slicer said.

“We dominated at times and Francis’s two goals were excellent.”

The Under-15s failed to win any matches in the 5-game programme.

The Tasmanian Under-14s lost their final match 2-0 to NSW Country today.

"We played very well," said Tasmania's coach, Dale Itchins. "It was 0-0 at half-time.

"They scored about five minutes into the second half when one of our defenders was in a one-on-one situation and was shielding the ball, but the opponent managed to get in a shot and scored.

"The second goal was a magnificent free-kick from about 30 metres.

"We came third in our group of five teams and that's pretty good."

The Under-14s finished the tournament with two wins and three losses.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 14s actually finished 5th out of 6 teams, so I don't know where Itchins' comment came from. 3rd, 4th and 5th all finished with 2 wins. This result (2 wins) was one of the better ones for a Tassie side and hopefully Itchens can keep the squad together full time in 2011 and have a crack at some more points.

Anonymous said...

unfortuneatley this result is not that good actually. as for the first time the 2 groups are seeded, so Tassie actually came 11th and didn't have to play any of the top 6 teams. Something needs to be done to fix this after the good results of the last two years were just getting Tas bac on the map.
wood be interested to no if other states had institute players playing