Beating the defending champions was always going to be a tough challenge and so it proved.
The classy Northern outfit was far too good for the Southern United women at Tahuna Park on Saturday. The floodgates opened early and never really closed as the visitors claimed a resounding 8-0 victory, scoring four goals in each half.
For Southern United, it was a second consecutive loss and took its total goals conceded to 13 this season.
A long-range strike by CJ Bott opened the scoring in the seventh minute, before Tessa Berger added a second 20 minutes later. Two goals in the final five minutes of the half, to Jane Barnett and Sam Tawharu, saw the score blow out to 4-0 at the break.Tawharu added two more in the second half, completing a hat trick, while Barnett scored one more and Katie Rood got among the scoring action, too.
Southern United will take consolation in the fact its losses have come against the competition’s two unbeaten teams. Northern was coming off a 4-3 win against Auckland, and notched a 3-0 win over Central in the first round. Southern United moves on to play Capital in Petone next week, which won 3-1 against Auckland. In the other game of the round, Waikato-Bay of Plenty beat Central 4-1.
● A late goal helped the Southern United men’s youth team to a 2-1 win against Canterbury United in Christchurch yesterday. After the scores were locked at 0-0 at halftime, Canterbury United took a 1-0 lead, before two Southern United goals allowed it to edge in front in the dying stages. The win gave the team its first points of the season.
