Tauranga City United 5 - 10 Rotorua United
Rotorua United demolished the best of Tauranga in emphatic fashion routing the hosts with a near perfect exhibition of counter-attacking football. Mitchell Miller delivered a master-class in finishing - smashing a club record 8 (eight) passed the City defence – a performance that further enhances his reputation as the most exciting striker to come out of Rotorua in recent years.
Mitchell’s efforts were applauded by his team mates after the game. Mitchell took his chances with ruthless efficiency, all driven low and hard into the corners from all angles and including a cool penalty strike. Scott Miller, Jordan Payne and Chan Sam Park were the architects of Mitchell’s performance delivering high quality passes that repeatedly sliced open the heart of the Tauranga defence.
Tauranga were hot favourites before the kick off with a 17 man squad made up of the best of the Tauranga Boys College XIs at under 17 level. United without ten first choice players had drafted in replacements at the last minute. This pulsating game was not what the relatively large Links Park crowd had expected. United were three ahead in fifteen minutes and 6-3 up at half time - Daniel Cronshaw-Hunt heading his first goal for United and Chan Sam Park converting from the penalty spot.
The second half saw United take complete control with Mitchell completing his double hatrick and nearly achieving a triple hat-rick had it not been for some last ditch defending and brave keeping. Captain Scott Miller led by example, tirelessly driving the midfield and Joe Nottage and Toby Jackson combining well to provide great width down the right. City themselves are full of quality individual players and showed their own attacking prowess netting five times despite a colossal effort from the United back four and Yu Lei in goal.
But this was to be Mitchell’s day. Many congratulations to the rest of the squad for an outstanding and brave effort. I doubt whether a team has ever put ten past a Tauranga City United representative side at Links Avenue – a day that will live long in the memory and a privilege to witness it.
United squad from: Yu Lei, Toby Jackson, Matthew Wells, Daniel Cronshaw-Hunt, Josh Nottage, Jordan Payne, Joe Nottage, Scott Miller (captain), Lasith Goonatilaka, Chan Sam Park, Mitchell Miller, Ben Williams.
Tim
