The Star: September 30, 2021

30 The Star Thursday September 30 2021
SPORTS NEWS
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Crunch time for city teams
• By Chris Barclay
CHRISTCHURCH United
and Coastal Spirit face crunch
matches with Dunedin
opposition as qualification
for football’s National League
reaches a tantalising conclusion
this weekend.
United improved to second
place behind runaway Southern
League leaders Cashmere
Technical with a 4-2 win over
bottom-placed Green Island producing
a five-goal positive goal
difference ahead of third-ranked
Selwyn United, who also have 10
competition points.
United can claim the second
and final berth by ending the
South City Royals’ season on Saturday,
with the fifth-placed club
still in contention if they prevail
at the Christchurch Football
Centre.
“Things have fallen our way in
the last couple of weeks, we’ve
picked up a couple of wins and
now we’re in a position where
our destiny in our own hands,”
said United coach Danny Halligan.
The former All White traced
the side’s resurgence back to a
3-2 loss to Cashmere Technical
in their last game before the
Covid-19 lockdown-inspired
break.
“I thought we made a significant
move there. We were
leading 2-0 for 70 minutes. We
were starting to show some really
good signs there and we’ve
continued on from that.”
Halligan said in some ways
the Covid-19 disruption was a
positive.
GOAL IN
SIGHT:
Christchurch
United can
join rivals
Cashmere
Technical
in next
month’s
National
League if
they beat
South City
Royals in the
final round
of qualifying.
PHOTO: JIM
WATTS
“The players came out of it
really fit whether they freshened
up or they did a lot of hard
work,” he said.
“Physically we’re in good
shape. We had two or three
injured players where the (lockdown)
period was a godsend for
them. It gave them a chance to
recover.”
Captain James McClay and
Matt Bergin are already back in
action while Michael Gealogo
could rejoin the squad this weekend.
United improved from fourth
after beating Green Island but
Halligan was taking nothing for
granted.
“Early on people wrote off
the Dunedin teams but they’ve
been quite competitive. Two of
them are still in with a shout of
qualifying.
“Form varies a lot. Coastal
were doing really well and
they’ve dropped into a bad patch.
Selwyn and ourselves had periods
where we weren’t going that
well but we’ve come right.
“It’s been an even competition,
we’ve got five teams looking for
that last spot.”
Selwyn United are aiming
for a profitable road trip to outof-contention
Nelson Suburbs,
while to cloud the qualification
picture further Coastal Spirit
could also advance in spite of a
slip up last weekend.
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