On what ended up to be a perfect Queen’s Birthday day, Matamata made the short trip over the Kaimais to Links Ave Mt Maunganui. This was the venue for their toughest challenge of the season so far, a second round Chatham Cup match against Northern League Premier side Tauranga City United.

Things for Matamata never started well even before kick off, as goalkeeper Gary Darkes was told by the match officials to change his shirt only minutes before kick off. As there was no other keeper’s shirt in the kit bag, Gary had to play in his jacket.

Once the game got under way, Matamata played competitive football with Tauranga City, passing the ball around with confidence and challenging their opponents in the way that many of the Matamata supporters who made the trip over have come to expect.

However, this only lasted about 15 minutes and the dimension of the game changed and Tauranga City’s superb off the ball running and slick passing started to take its toll on their lesser fancied opponents. This lead to some Matamata players been sucked into the middle of the park, which left gapping holes on the flanks of the midfield and extra pressure on the defence.

After a significant amount of pressure from a better team, and numerous free kicks resulting from some persnickety officiating, Tauranga went into halftime two nil ahead.

Matamata came out in the second half needing to be the next team to score if they were going to have any chance of getting back into the match. Unfortunately, after about 90 seconds of the second half Tauranga City were three nil up.

While the final score of five nil was not the result Matamata wanted, they should take heart from the performance of their strikers, who had limited opportunities in this match. Both Hayri Chian and Jason Collins earnt numerous under-utilised set piece opportunities with their pace and their ability to place pressure on a sometimes-shaky Tauranga City back four.

The other performer of note for Matamata was their man of the match Andy Birchenough, who had another strong game in the midfield with his uncanny ability to appear exactly where he was needed any where on the pitch.

While this was easily one of Matamata’s most lack lustre performances this season, against a better side in Tauranga City, they now have to turn their attention to the Waikato Premier League and their upcoming match away this Saturday to Te Awamutu.