Southern Utd bounces back to topple league leader

Eastern’s Rachel Head controls the ball while Saki Yoshida blocks Southern’s Emily Morison at Logan Park yesterday. PHOTO: GREGOR RICHARDSON

Chelsea Whittaker felt like she owed her team.

After missing several shots at goal earlier, the Southern United midfielder took her chances when a Toni Power pass pushed her into space.

Whittaker cut inside the defence and slotted the match-winning goal in the 92nd minute to beat top-of-the table Eastern Suburbs at Logan Park yesterday.

"It’s always good, especially against the top team," Whittaker said.

"I mean, we’d worked so hard that whole 90 minutes . . . we deserved the win, so I was just lucky to be the one to put it in the back of the net."

It was an impressive victory for the team and avenged last week’s national league loss to bottom-placed Central.

"I mean, how many teams lose against the bottom team and then beat the top team?

"We really just wanted to bounce back from last week and come back and show everyone what we can do."

And it did. Southern put the pressure on Eastern from the start and held possession for most of the opening 20 minutes.

Both teams squandered opportunities at goal and it became a battle in the middle as Southern worked to shut down Eastern’s Tayla O’Brien.

Freya Partridge-Moore showed her grit on defence and Kennedy Bryant and Rose Morton were in everything to keep the Auckland team scoreless.

Margarida Dias had Southern’s best shot at goal just before halftime, but when it bounced off the crossbar, both teams went into the break 0-0.

Eastern came out with more intensity and worked hard to break into the match first. It came in the 60th minute when Amy Atkins scored to push her team to a 1-0 lead.

But it did not last long. Six minutes later, Southern’s Emily Morison lobbed the ball high and looked stunned when it reached the back of the net to level the scores.

From there, it was a fight to the finish. Eastern was down to 10 players, due to several injuries, for the final 20 minutes and Southern made the most of its opportunities for Whittaker to win the game.

It was a solid performance from Southern and Whittaker was proud of the determination her team showed to take down the top side.

Everyone had put in a real effort.

"That high press really worked for us quite well throughout the game and I think one would go and someone else would support, so the teamwork was really impressive."

In other games, Western Springs thumped Central Football 9-0, Northern Rovers beat Canterbury United Pride 6-3, and Auckland United won 3-2 against Capital Football.

— In the men’s national league final, Auckland City beat Wellington Olympic 3-2 at Mt Smart Stadium. Auckland scored first in the 33rd minute through Liam Gillion, followed by Gerard Garriga seven minutes later. But when midfielder Reid Drake was red-carded for a late sliding tackle, Auckland was forced to play with 10 players for the second half.

Wellington scored in the 77th minute through Tor Davenport-Peterson and then Connor Gaul. Auckland scored again through Angus Kilkolly to win the title.