Our first away game saw us visit North Shore United and the match proved to be a good advertisement for youth football.
Metro welcomed back their captain Jason Beeston who has been missing for three weeks with an ankle injury.
North Shore were very physical, but played some nice football and had Metro on the back foot for long periods. However, when we broke our shackles we caused a few problems for the home defence and Martin Veele almost grabbed the opening goal but for an excellent stop by Bell the Shore 'keeper.
Soon afterwards Shore grabbed the first goal when they broke down the right wing and caught us napping leaving their player a simple tap in!
Metro battled back and forced a couple of corners and had two fierce shots blocked before the half time whistle blew.
The second half was only five minutes old when Metro conceded a second goal. A right wing crossed was mis-headed by Jason Beeston straight to a Shore forward who headed home from six yards giving our 'keeper no chance.
Instead of losing confidence and dropping their heads, Metro took the game to the home side and ten minutes later almost scored when Michael Cook's lob was hooked off the line with their 'keeper stranded. Metro continued to press and forced Shore to 'keeper to save at full stretch twice in succession.
As the game went on Metro got more share of the ball, but Shore were very good on the counter-attack and went close a couple times before the finish. Metro certainly prospered when the Shore centre forward was sent off for foul and abusive language. It was amazing that it took the referee 68 minutes to take some action against a team which was over physical and continually dissented the referee's decision.
Overall, their were some signs that this new -look Metro Under -19 team are starting to adjust to the pace of the game at this level and I look forward to seeing improvement over the next few weeks. We have some hard fixtures coming up but now we have all our players fit and available which means the team's formation and consistency should settle down.
Team: Woolmer, Bowen, Beeston, D. Fonoti, Regan (A.Fonoti 45), Jemai (Dacre 78), Kubicki, Beckham, Cook, Veele (Miocevich 78), Peihopa.
On Sunday 4th May we entertain University-Mount Wellington, Kick off 12.30 p.m.

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