NZ Champs Presented great quality exciting finals in all sections

Papatoetoe take two from three titles winning youth and 1st division while falling short in the final of the premier division. Wellington take final of the premier division with a huge come back from 5-0 down to win 6-5.

Premier Division game reports

The comp started with papatoetoe starting strong beating New Plymouth with a huge win 13-0. Wanganui the last tournament winners looking strong also beat New Plymouth but losing to wellington needed to improve to make play off for final. Wellington started with a good structure beating Papatoetoe on Friday 6-2. Papatoetoe came out fired up taking a strong win over Wanganui with a huge score while New Plymouth showed some form against Wellington causing a 5-5 all draw.

New Plymouth then played Wanganui in the play off to get the chance to play Papatoetoe in the final play off, while Wellington was already confirmed in the first final spot.

Wanganui won the eliminator game causing New plymouth to be out of the finals. Wanganui then came out with a different game plan against Papatoetoe, looking to shake the defending champs.

What a game as Wanganui had it in the bag until 12 seconds to go before game end John Bardo scored for Papatoetoe causing the game to go into extra time. Wanganui the scored first and once again Pap scored in the dying seconds, then sudden death was on the cards. With both teams completely exhuasted it was done to someone special to take there team to the final, and that came to Mike langridge shooting in the 6th minute and getting a deflection of Blair lockets stick and scoring the winning goal to take Pap into the final vs Wellington.

Final Game

Papatoetoe came out blasting goals in from all angles with mike langridge playing a blinder along with the team having good defence. It looked like Pap was going to take this final with an easy win as they made it 5-0 after 18 min. Well that all changed when Wellington scored two quick goals before half time making the half time score 5-2. Pap stayed at the high pace and started to look tired as Wellington started to get into gear slowly chipping away the lead until finally getting the score level in the last 5 minutes. Pap had hit the post on many breakaways and the team were getting frustrated, and then the final blow from Wellington with three minutes remaining happened with them scoring taking the lead 6-5. Pap struggled to equalize and Wellington took the NZ title after Pap had held it for four years.

Well done to all teams as the games were action packed and left the spectators wanting more. Congratulations to Wellington on taking the title and a great come back.