MATCH REPORT | Eastern Suburbs 5 v Three Kings United 0
Eastern Suburbs scored their second 5-0 win in a row at Madills Farm and, for the second week in a row, Jade Parris came away with a hat-trick. it was a confident performance by Suburbs and there could easily have been more goals in the game as the Lilywhites were 3-0 up within the first half hour and looking to be in complete control. Three Kings played very deep in the first half and left themselves vulnerable to the bustling runs of Jade Parris and Hannah Pilley, but they managed to restrict the score to three goals and the visitors were much more positive in the second half.
Suburbs were missing a number of players to the U20’s NZ team currently playing in the world cup in France and they have also lost their two Korean girls who have returned home. It was therefore up to the other girls to step up and they did just that, particularly in the midfield where Kate Seater and Lucy Carter covered a tremendous amount of ground. Molly Bryans made sure her last game of the season before returning to her studies in the US was a good one and she was highly competitive and energetic in midfield.
The game started well for suburbs who launched a number of attacks in the first few minutes. One of these lead to the first goal when Jade Parris forced her way past a couple of defenders and attempted a shot from long range. She appeared to slip over as she took the shot and the ball squirted off her foot into the path of Hannah Pliley who directed a firmly hit shot from the edge of the penalty box into the roof of the net.
The second goal came from a nicely worked combination of passes just outside Three Kings penalty area which had the visitors defence confused and when Jade Parris found a couple of yards of space she made sure she took advantage by placing a low shot into the corner of the net.
Goal number three came soon after and was the result of another powerful run by Parris who looked like she had been tackled a couple of times but used her strength to keep going almost to the goal line before unleashing an unstoppable shot from a tight angle into the top right hand corner.
The second half was very different to the first as both teams struggled to launch any penetrating attacks and it was punctuated by a number of injuries and lengthy stoppages for free kicks which upset the rhythm of the game. Three Kings managed to put together a few good moves of their own and they were much more lively in the second half, but rarely troubled Corina Brown in the Suburbs goal. The Lilywhites had to wait until the 86th minute before adding to their first half tally, when they managed to break out of defence at speed, releasing Hannah Pilley whose well weighted through ball to Jade Parris left her one on one with the keeper and she made no mistake for her hat-trick.
The last goal came in stoppage time at the end of the game. The tired Three Kings midfield could only watch as Suburbs passed the ball around in neat triangles, finally finding Lucy Carter who made some space for herself and beat the keeper with a powerful shot from 20 yards out.
This was another very satisfying performance and, with ten goals in their last two games, Suburbs will be hoping they can maintain their momentum into the last few games of the season despite the enforced changes to the team.