The long holiday weekend is a cocktail of contrasts - FootballSouth Premier football today and Chatham Cup on Monday.
The marathon 21-game league season against the sudden-death ruthlessness of the Cup competition.
Since Caversham has opted not to play in the Chatham Cup, coach Tim Horner's side will focus on today's match. Four points ahead at the top of the FPL, Caversham will try to keep its foot on the pedal in Central Otago where Queenstown is the opponent.
Last week, the wild winds destroyed many team patterns but, despite Horner looking for more controlled play, the eventual result of 3-0 over Northern was regarded as acceptable, and that sound defensive performance maintained a goal differential that might be invaluable later in the season.
Queenstown is still shuddering after its 9-0 hammering by Technical last week, but coach Jamie Whitmarsh will hope for a positive rebound this week.
He is Football South's regional coach for that area, as well as being Rovers boss, and Whitmarsh aims to blend his promising young players into the senior squad, and in fact he named Olli Ceci and Louis Day as standout players last week.
Any nine-goal win is a shot in the arm, and Dunedin Technical strikers Alistair Rickerby and Taylor McCormack, with four and three-goal hauls respectively, will be hungry for more this week against Mosgiel at Tahuna Park.
The goal feast made McCormack frontrunner in this season's Golden Boot race with an eight-goal tally in eight games so far this season while Rickerby has five goals.
Mosgiel travels to Tahuna Park to face Technical and will provide stiffer opposition than Queenstown. Coach Andrew Brook rates his young squad highly and ''if they deliver to their potential, we can more than compete with Tech,'' he said.
The abandoned matches tend to disrupt league tables and get them out of kilter, but positive coaches tend to regard the missing matches as points in their hip pocket, and a win plus the catch-up game could place Mosgiel back among the FPL leaders with 16 points.
At the Caledonian Ground, coach Luiz Uehara's University side needs to stay in touch with the top sides and will be after maximum points from Northern.
The students' tight defence combines pace and flair on the break-out and they were 1-0 ahead last week when the Roslyn game was abandoned.
Northern is an improving side, but lacks bite in attack, except for corners and set plays where some tall timber can be assembled.
Roslyn-Wakari coach Colin Thom has a few players thinking about trips to Brazil in the near future, and from now onwards he will be re-shaping his team with a sprinkling of reserve youngsters, possibly starting at Sunnyvale.
Green Island coach Malcolm Fleming has also had to introduce youngsters to fill gaps, and last week's abandoned game will give the industrious coach a chance to work on his side's ball retention.
Chatham Cup matches rear up on Monday, the main Dunedin game being between Technical and Roslyn. It kicks at 2pm at the Caledonian Ground, to accommodate extra time and penalties if required.
University heads south to the slick artificial surface of Invercargill's ILT Football Turf, which should suit the student ball players against Old Boys.
Mosgiel travels to Timaru to play Northern Hearts at Aorangi Park, and West End FC plays Pleasant Point. In Canterbury, its Richmond Athletic v Nelson College, Coastal Spirit FC v Nomads Utd, Universities v Halswell Utd, and Burwood AFC v Cashmere Technical.
In the women's competition tomorrow, Dunedin Technical Diamonds takes on Dunedin Technical Premiers and, at Ellis Park, Roslyn-Wakari plays University.
