The Dunedin City Royals continued their strong start to the Southern League season with a 3-0 win over FC Twenty11 at the Logan Park turf on Saturday.
After a quiet start in perfect conditions, Ollie Petersen burst through on the right and forced a good save from visiting keeper Finnbharr Mounty.
From the resulting corner, Connor Neil headed towards goal but it was cleared off the line.
Petersen provided an aerial threat in the box, often heading down to teammates in the area, while Ben Stanley almost opened the scoring for the Royals with a free kick in a good position.
Oban Hawkins also had a shot on target but, again, the FC Twenty11 custodian made a save.
Finally, in the 40th minute, the opening goal came after a scramble from a corner kick. Stanley hammered a powerful shot off the crossbar, but on the rebound, Connor Neil was nearby and finished across the goal.
The Royals took confidence from the goal and made it 2-0 just a few minutes after the break.
The ball came towards Stanley in the penalty area, and with a neat touch and excellently placed shot, he found the bottom right corner of the net.
The Royals continued to look the better team without quite being at their strongest, looking for a third goal that would kill off any hint of a comeback.
FC Twenty11 offered scarce threat going forward, looking disorganised and unable to endanger a solid Royals defence.
Striker Kane Kilbride was a lone bright spark, and after getting through a bit too easily, was able to force Royals keeper Alex Boomer into a good save.
The Royals, third in the league, sealed the points in the 82nd minute from a quick breakaway.
Will Turner provided the pass into the area for Tyler Muir, who finished cleanly into the bottom left corner.
Sean Cooper had a quality all-round performance at left back, Jed Collings was excellent at the centre of defence, and attackers Turner and Muir impressed coming on off the bench.
In Christchurch, Green Island slipped to a 6-2 loss to Nomads.
Green Island trailed 2-0 after 34 minutes after conceding two goals in two minutes to Dan Ede and Declan Hickford.
The Dunedin club responded extremely well to go into halftime at 2-2 , thanks to Tom Milton's 38th-minute penalty and Adam Hewson’s 42nd-minute equaliser.
Nomads scored another quick brace midway through the second half, before some lapses in Green Island’s concentration two minutes before the final whistle allowed Nomads to grab another two goals.
It leaves Green Island on three points along with FC Twenty11 and Nomads.
— Logan Smith and Neville Watson
