Late goal sinks Southern Utd women

Southern United’s Chelsea Whittaker attempts to take the ball off Auckland’s Paige Satchell during the national women’s league match at Tahuna Park yesterday. Photo: Linda Robertson

That was a tough one to lose.

A 94th-minute goal handed Southern United its first loss of the national women’s football league season at Tahuna Park yesterday.

Lucy Carter was the heroine for Auckland, as she rocketed a shot from 30m to find the top corner and give the visitors a 2-1 win. It was a superb strike, aided by the strong wind which Auckland had at its back throughout the second half.

The loss was Southern’s first at home since 2016, although it was more than competitive against last year’s champion.

Indeed it was Southern that took a 1-0 lead to halftime.

It made good use of the wind, delivering several long balls to put the Auckland defence under pressure.

While the goal came from a 19th-minute corner, it was a long ball from Renee Bacon to Emily Morison which led to the corner.

Morison nearly scored herself, although she was unable to stretch far enough to finish the move.

A minute later Bacon got on the end of Chelsea Whittaker’s corner and her shot deflected off Auckland’s Bianca Stiles into the goal.It was a welcome goal after Auckland had created several chances of its own early.

The most notable of those came in the sixth minute, when, after a messy corner, Kim Nottingham put one straight over the bar from close range.

Auckland continued to threaten on the counter-attack, notably through the classy Paige Satchell. The Southern defence scrambled well, though. Mikaela Hunt and Kelsey Kennard in particular shone in that regard, while goalkeeper Jordan Woodward made a handful of good saves.

That enabled Southern to press forward with confidence and it nearly became 2-0 in the 26th minute.

Bacon again put in a threatening long ball for Morison, although she could not quite finish off.

Auckland became more dominant throughout the second half.

Southern was able to make several breaks, although was never quite clinical enough to create genuine chances.

In the 60th minute Auckland equalised. Sam Muirhead capitalised on a messy corner in the box, finishing in the left of the goal, well out of reach of Woodward.

Auckland continued to dominate from that point and while Lara Wall made two probing runs, Southern rarely looked like scoring.

However, its defence was also doing a good job of holding on.

Four minutes of added time proved one too many, though, as Carter slotted home the winner.

While the loss to tough to take, Southern coach Ignacio Sande had been happy with his side’s performance.

"It was disappointing because they scored in the last minute, but I’m happy with the performance. I think the team did great in the first half.

"After the last game, when we struggled in the first half, it was a challenge for us to see if we could change that.

"We were in the game and we created a lot of chances in the first half and we were very strong."

However, he said several players had been sick during the week and that showed through in the final 20 minutes as energy levels fell.

He said Auckland was a good team which was capable of using space if it found it.

The win leaves Auckland in second place on six points, although with a game in hand.

Canterbury United remains on top of the table after a 7-0 thrashing of Central, while Northern drew level with Southern in third with a 4-1 win over Capital.