NEW ROVERS 7-2 GREENS FC

Stepford

OUSMANE CISSÉ, set up by Nabil Al Humaidi’s clever pass, coolly opened the scoring early on - but not before Rovers had created half a dozen real chances, either well defended or poorly attempted. ISRAEL ONWUBIKO, set up by his strike partner then CISSÉ’s second came before the break - but again chances were being missed and Greens netted their first in reply.

With the next goal needed to get far enough ahead to ensure the three points, a couple of sitters were missed and CHA HENDERSON was moved up front - and scored immediately! Though Greens did score again, HENDERSON added a second goal, AL HUMAIDI broke well from midfield to take the total to six and before the end ANDREA EKUASE got number seven - with Tuacenio Dos Santos a huge influence with three assists.

Apart from a couple of errors which led to Greens’ goals, the Back 3, which in the second half became a 4, coped well, with last season’s Back 3 of Callan Hay, Scott Mathieson and Michael Semirimu playing together for the first time this campaign.

In midfield Johnny Greenwood, Rameez Javed and Nabil Al Humaidi dominated while in the wide areas, Henderson and Craig Taylor - making a very welcome return to the team - caused Greens all sorts of problems.

To an extent, our untidy display overall restricted some early substitutions but Andrea Ekuase, Tuacenio Dos Santos, Abdul Alsahar, Joe Martin and Harald Martins all got useful game time in a win that leaves us top of the league at Christmas.

Zalewski; Hay, Mathieson, Semirimu; Henderson (Martins), Javed (Martin), Greenwood, Al Humaidi, Taylor (Dos Santos); Cissé (Alsahar), Onwubiko (Ekuase)

Subs not used: Stevenson, Abdulrahman