Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Sad start to the NPL Tasmania 2024 season

Photo:  Alex Walter (on the ground) opens the scoring for South Hobart against the Lions. [PlessPix] 

Devonport City, Glenorchy Knights and South Hobart made positive starts to the 2024 NPL Tasmania season.

Devonport, the reigning champions, downed Clarence Zebras 3-0 at home at Valley Road.

An opener by Brody Denehy and two penalties by Riku Ichimura withing 5 minutes of each other late in the game did the damage.

The visitors didn’t help their cause when they were awarded a spot-kick which was squandered by Kyle Vincent.

Photo:  Kingborough's Kobe Kemp (left) prepares for a challenge by South Hobart's Jacob Lancaster. [PlessPix] 

Glenorchy Knights smashed Launceston United 9-0 away at Birch Avenue.

Anthony Mamic, Stefan Cordwell and Riley Dillon all scored braces, with the remaining goals coming from Jack Glover, Joshua Redfearn and Thomas Walpole.

It’s not the start the Launceston outfit wanted, of course, and there may be bleak times ahead for them.

Kingborough Lions United have lost two key players in Declan Taylor, who has moved to Taroona, and Jaeden Mercure, who is reportedly injured.

They played Eisa Azizi in goal in preference to Masatoshi Kawano in goal.

Photo:  Kingborough;s Keenan Douce (left) tangles with South Hobart's Tobias Herweynen. [PlessPix] 

Alex Walter fired South Hobart in front after 35 minutes following a pass from Adam Gorrie, while Samuel Berezansky made it 2-0 three minutes later from Bradley Lakoseljac’s pass.

Former South Hobart player and now captain of Kingborough, Kobe Kemp, reduced the arrears in the 62nd minute, but Austin Yost curled home a fine shot in the 72nd minute to ensure the visitors of the three points.

Photo:  South Hobart's Harrison Oates has a shot at goal against Kingborough. [PlessPix] 

The opening game of the round on Friday night was not completed.

The Riverside Olympic versus Launceston City derby was halted in the 27th minute when Riverside’s Will Fleming sustained a broken leg in a tackle with a City opponent, who was shown the red card

It was 1-1 at that stage after a penalty by Riverside’s Gediminas Krusa had been cancelled out by a spot-kick by City’s Will Humphrey.

Fleming managed to crawl to the side-line but the pain then set in and he was in agony for the next half-hour while awaiting an ambulance.

The referee abandoned the game after half an hour of waiting and it will have to be replayed at a later date.

Several issues arose out of this situation.

Obviously, there cannot be a doctor at every game so it is important that fully qualified first-aid people are on the bench for all clubs. 

I cannot say why the player was not stretchered away to the warmth of a dressing room while awaiting the arrival of an ambulance.  Perhaps no one was qualified enough to move the player given the nature of the injury.

The audio on the live stream should have been turned off, too, as it was disconcerting to hear the cries of the injured player for some significant time after the injury.

I don’t know why the referee didn’t send the two teams to the dressing rooms when it became clear there would be a lengthy delay in the arrival of the ambulance.

A sorry way to start the NPL season.  I do hope Fleming makes a complete recovery from this nasty injury.

 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would be interesting to know why Declan Taylor has moved to Taroona in the Championship from being a consistent NPL starter. Seems very odd on the surface.

Anonymous said...

Same boring league as every year

Devenport
South
Knights

Long way to kingbrough

Then the rest are rubbish

Major overhaul needed in the state

Anonymous said...

8:12 AM
By allowing NPL clubs to also play in the Championship Football Tas has destroyed any chance of a Championship club ever being promoted because of their foootball quality (think Launceston United and Knights WSL). Not to mention destroying the Championship with Most clubs struggling for numbers.
So Same Same it is for the npl from now on

Anonymous said...

That's absolute BS
The strongest clubs in the championship and this is fact are NOT the NPL clubs. Name the NPL club that has won the Northern or southern championship in the last 3 seasons?

Anonymous said...

the allowing or not allowing npl in champ and champ 1 has always been an argument in the sth as north have always done it .
the only way it will ever work in the sth is if its promotion etc which wont happen until all champ teams actually want and have the resources to play in npl

Anonymous said...

11.13 AM
Didn’t say the NPL clubs were the strongest in the Championship. They have raided the championship clubs for bodies just so they can compete with south Hobart. Last season South were the only Npl club that went in with 5 fresh subs. All subs would play champ the next day so no pressure to play any of them if Ken didn’t need to. The point of the 21s was so the youth would be the foundation of the NPL clubs. Other players had a choice to play socials or move to a championship club. 2 players transferred to South because they could play champ then after June be available for npl. That is the only reason these clubs want a champ team. So they can pick up the next Eduardo

Anonymous said...

Hahahah mate if players leave your championship team to play on an NPL clubs champ team that says more about you.
Did you think that the champ clubs might have benefited players from NPL clubs when they didn't enter champ. Goes both ways.
You are clearly from Olympia they are the biggest books on social media