Metro West & Metro Far South share the honours at the 2009 Football NSW State Titles
At Bathurst, the Metro West Under 11 team completed their tour of duty by beating Metro East 3-0 and finishing top of table and Champions with only one loss to Metro South. The defeat of Metro East also enabled Metro South to grab the runners up medals as they defeated Country Riverina 3-0. Everyone at these young player?s titles could only marvel at the excellent standard of so many players from so many teams. The future of football in this country and indeed across the world is in very safe hands if our coaches can continue to develop players from the grass roots with so much skill and individual expression. Well done to the Metropolitan League coaches, you guys, along with our Country coaches have done a marvelous job. Keep up the good work.
Country Western Under 11?s were declared Country Champions, but only just in front of Country Southern. A great effort by Country Western considering most of the Country Southern lads play in the Sydney competition every week.
At Wagga Wagga it was Metropolitan Far South who consolidated their position at the top and their Champions title with a hard fought 0-0 draw with Metropolitan North. Metro East also had a 0-0 draw with Metro West, but this was enough to give Metro East the runners up medals and again, the spectators could only marvel at the expertise of these young players over the past week.
Country West, courtesy of their 3 mandatory points from today?s match against the NSW Country 13?s grabbed the Country Champions title from Country Riverina. This was a great week for Country West and they are proud winners, but the talking point was the form of the Country 13 boys today who, although not playing for points, were able to topple Country West 4-1. A vast improvement in this team over the week and whoever approved the entry of this team into this competition must be a genius. J
I had finally made it to Orange for the final day and the match of the week kicked off at 9.00am and the temperature was a bracing 2? with a ?nasty? breeze. Back to the match, the undefeated Metro East (19 pts) were playing the also undefeated Metro West (17 pts) and with Metro East only needing a draw began the match in a negative fashion and this appeared to play right into the hands of Metro West who grabbed a goal in the 20th minute to lead 1-0 at half time.
The match was a willing affair with a number of yellow cards issued in the first half, but it came as a surprise to see two red cards issued to Metro East early in the 2nd half and this was the end of their quest for these titles, as almost immediately Metro West capitalized on their numerical advantage and went ahead 2-0 and Metro West were crowned Undefeated State Titles Champions and Metro East were left only to wonder what went wrong and could only be consoled by collecting the runner?s up medals.
Country Riverina were crowned Country Champions despite losing today to Metro Far North as they had enough of a lead to see them emerge above Country West on the points table.
Finally, at Nowra it was the very talented Metro Far South that further emphasized their superiority at this year?s titles by beating Metro North 4-0. Metro Far North were also able to secure the runners up position and even though many teams displayed at times, great ability and strength it was the consistency of the Metro Far South team that saw them crowned Champions for 2009.
Country Southern went down today to Country Western, however their consistency over the past week was enough to still secure them the Country Championship in front of Country Western.
An added thrill for the boys and an honor to Football NSW was the presentation of medals by two of our past Socceroos, George Kulscar and Abbas Saad.
Well that is it for another week of State Titles in July and the standard displayed by the players has been outstanding and was only matched by the professionalism of the volunteers at all venues which were turned out in pristine condition, in some cases only to be ruined by the weather, but to their credit, these wonderful country people simply moved everything onto adjoining fields and how pleased were the players to be actually playing on grass again.
We can now all work towards October when we will see the 12 boys at Mudgee, the 13 boys at Shoalhaven and of course, the 12-14-16 Women at Dubbo.
Larry Grant
Competition Secretary
