Big wins for Comag Matamata Swifts and Challenge Matamata Swifts Ladies lit up the weekend for our community’s football club.

Comag Matamata Swifts found the conditions at Papamoa far more troubling than their opponents, but managed to return home with a 4-0 Loaded WaiBOP Premiership victory safely in the bank.

An early Dayne Willemsen strike and a Scott Parsonage header saw the Swifts leading comfortably at the break. The gale zipping in from the Pacific proved to tougher to wrangle as the Swifts took a while to get into full flow. The team also hit the woodwork twice in the opening half while limiting Papamoa to precisely no shots at goal.

Substitute Logan Raynel finished off the move of the match for Matamata ten minutes into the second half, then Brad West tapped home with fifteen minutes remaining to complete the scoring.

The victory margin allowed the Swifts to edge into second place in the standing ahead of Waikato Unicol on goal difference, while they still sit a point behind leaders Taupo.

Other Saturday results didn’t quite go the way of Matamata, although a patched together Richardson Racing Stables Matamata Reserves played well in going down 2-0 at Hamilton Wanderers, while the Swifts A team lost a tight Waikato Cup encounter 1-0 at Claudelands Rovers.

On Sunday, the Challenge Matamata Swifts Ladies beat Mangakino 11-0 in the only game played at the Domain over the weekend. Matamata’s opening Waikato Cup game was always going to be a bit of a mis-match, but the team showed the visitors the ultimate respect by performing relentlessly right up to the final whistle.

The goals were spread around. Manon van Lith led the way with four well taken strikes, while captain Kerrie Cox and Annemieke Verstraten both scored twice. Julie Reay, Zoe Reichardt and Holly Manton also found the back of the net.

Matamata moved the ball well and peppered Mangakino’s goal throughout what was only their second home game of the season. The team maintained their standards from the first whistle to the last, defending strongly when needed and pressing the over-worked visitors in the attacking third during a dominant all round performance.