Gary Fowell Builders Plains Rangers

May 28 Men v Papamoa

May 29 Women v Old Blues

On Saturday Gary Fowell Builders Plains Rangers put in a strong showing at home to Papamoa, and were unlucky not to come away with a win.
Rangers got into stride quickly and put plenty of pressure on their visitors. Nestor Rocha, on debut, was very unlucky not to open the scoring. With the keeper beaten, his goalbound shot unluckily struck a fellow team mate and was blocked. Soon after, he set up the hard working Dylan Arthur with a chance, but the shot went wide. Rangers continued to have the upper hand for the remainder of the half, and their defence kept the Papamoa strikers, led by ex-Eastern Bay player Andy Brabant, quiet.
In the second half, the pattern continued. Player of the day Tom Davison smacked a shot into the underside of the Papamoa crossbar, and it must have been very close to bouncing over the line and then out again. Jeremy Hawkes broke out of defence, and hit a left foot shot narrowly wide. Late in the game Ben McPherson might have won a penalty, but the defender's push was deemed to have been outside the box and a free kick given. Almost on the stroke of full time, Christian Wetting's close range strike smacked into the keeper to keep the home team scoreless. The final score was Plains Rangers 0, Papamoa 0.
The game was played in good spirit, before a good sized crowd at Awakeri, and it was well controlled by referee Ian Finch. It was a good performance by the home team, with plenty of chances created, and no luck in the goal department.
This Saturday Rangers have a bye, due to the unfortunate withdrawal of the Kawerau team from the league.

A fantastic performance all round from the girls today; although Old Blues were off to a flying start with the wind behind their backs, our girls set about trying to shut them down. The wiley blues were somewhat fanciful in their attacks but the tenacity of the girls defence across the park saw that the Old Blues were not going to walk all over us. There was some solid plays from the Rangers also, formation being the key and the promise that the girls are on the right track. Running on empty again the girls virtually played their hearts out; some commendable performances from our backs slash forwards Kelly and Hailey; a well played game by Kylie and a great performance in goal by Stacey, but the standout and player of the day was Donna. She gave it all she had, and although not happy with her performance. It was the actions of continuously thinking on and off the ball that showed the desire to play some great football. Well done girls you can all be proud of how far you've come in such little time, now the addage today rings so true 'its not wether you win or lose its how you play the game', you all put your best foot forward and put together some nice pieces of football, well done.