After 34 days away Auckland FC returned to Go Media stadium. Despite the heavy rain more than 13,000 turned out to witness a largely dominant display and a 2-0 home win for the Black Knights.
Both teams took time to acclimatise to the slippery conditions and after a scrappy opening few minutes Auckland began to grow in confidence and exert more and more control, exemplified by a clever touch from goalkeeper Alex Paulsen to take the ball away from an on-rushing jets attacker. Alex Paulsen, he’s just a chill guy.
The team were without captain Hiroki Sakai, still feeling the effects of a minor hamstring injury picked up in Sydney. Up stepped New Zealand international Callan Elliot for his first start for the Black Knights with Jake Brimmer made captain for the day.
Chances started to mount for Auckland, May looking dangerous down the left-hand side and keen to add to his goal from last week against Macarthur.
Soon enough it was all Auckland. Auckland were excellent in the midfield; Brimmer was always available for a pass, Verstraete protected the defence and scholarship signing Liam Gillion caused all sorts of problems for the Newcastle defence and must now be one of the most fouled players in the league after today.
The chance of the half fell to centre-back for the day Dan Hall, who acrobatically connected at the back post with a free kick and forced a good save from the Newcastle ‘keeper.
The rain kept falling, the fans kept signing and soon it was time for subs. Neyder Moreno for Rogerson and Max Mata replacing Jake Brimmer not long after, with May picking up the captain’s armband.
Auckland kept pressing. Clear penalties were waved away, shots were saved or blocked but eventually the Black Knights broke through. On 84 minutes a Francis de Vries cross was half-cleared into the path of Moreno who struck a beautiful curling volley into the corner of the Newcastle Jets net.
On came Tommy Smith and minutes later it was two. A Luis Felipe Gallegos freekick fell to de Vires on the edge of the area who found the back of the net with the ball taking a slight deflection off an opposition player. A VAR check for offside meant a nervy couple of minutes for de Vires first professional A-League goal to be confirmed.
The fulltime whistle soon blew and the players rushed to celebrate together in front of the Port.
Another win, another clean sheet and Auckland FC remain top of the league. The defence may have looked a little different, but the result was the same.
The team is now just 20 minutes away from beating the record for the most clean sheets at the start of an Isuzu UTE A-League Men’s season, a record currently held by Central Coast Mariners.
