Melville 2-2 Swifts

Recap

All four Swifts senior teams were back in action over the weekend, but the talk leading up to the latest set of games was about whether the club would have enough fit and available players to fulfil their scheduled fixtures. Thankfully the crisis, particularly prevalent across the men’s teams, eased just enough to allow the club to send teams to various parts of the Waikato. In a couple of cases, however, results were quite severe.

Comag Matamata Swifts picked up another point with a 2-2 draw at fellow mid-table side, Melville United. The Swifts are quickly becoming The Soccer Shop WaiBOP Premiership’s draw specialists, with this being their fifth in nine league games.

Melville had taken a one goal lead into half time after having the better of the first half but Chris Walker, working his way back to full fitness, equalised ten minutes into the second half after a goal mouth scramble.

The hosts retook the lead soon after, however, when they (maybe) broke the off-side trap but defender Chris Monteith equalised for Matamata with less than twenty minutes remaining.

While proving hard to beat, this season is already shaping up as something of a what-might-have-been had some of those draws been converted into wins. That’s the negative viewpoint, however. The positive way of looking at things is that the team has a tight knit group of players who are prepared to play through injuries, where humanly possible, to ensure the club remains competitive at Premiership level. Hopefully the team will be closer to full strength and full fitness in the near future.