Courtesy: Manawatu Standard


Red Sox keen to avenge 2010 loss

02/12/2011

The Red Sox-Manawatu futsal team will be out to avenge last year's semifinal knockout at the first series of the national league in Dunedin this weekend, despite having several new players in their squad.

Red Sox have half of their team back from last year when they were in contention for the finals, before they lost the semi to Australian team Maccabi Hakoah.

Player-coach Murray Burling said the level of competition at the series opener would be a surprise to the five new players in their squad.

"The first one is always an eye-opener to the guys that are playing in our grade [compared] to the pace and the skills that we play in our [national] league," he said.

"It's a pretty big step up but I think most of them will deal with it."

Maccabi Hakoah, from New South Wales, knocked Red Sox out last year but they are not competing in New Zealand this time, and Red Sox will play New Zealand teams Futsal South (Dunedin), Hawke's Bay, Auckland Massey and Capital Futsal (Wellington) in their draw.

"I think the strongest team will be Auckland East City so I would say they'll be the team to beat, our goal definitely is to make the semis," Burling said.

The other teams competing at the series are Auckland East City, NFF Futsal (Auckland) and Mainland Futsal (Christchurch).

Futsal is very similar to indoor football, but with a less bouncy ball and requires a high fitness levels, despite the rolling substitutes, to cope with the 20-minute halves.

"It's high intensity, a lot of action and generally a lot of goals," Burling said.

There are nine Manawatu players going down to compete including Greg O'Connor who has played for the New Zealand team, the Futsal Whites.

Burling said they had been mainly concentrating on defence because if they can limit the goals then he backed his team to score enough goals to win.

He said it was likely selectors for the Futsal Whites would be at the tournament and there was a chance his players would be looked at for selection.

There are two more legs after the Dunedin series, one in Auckland and the final in Wellington.




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com