Halswell United AFC

Good afternoon as we welcome Jim and his Western team to the Nest for this ANZAC Thursday English Cup fixture. We use this day to remember the service and sacrifice of all who have given their life to serve New Zealand's interests.

Games are coming in thick and fast and we expect this to be a tough encounter against a Western team who have heavily recruited this season. We know they are now a different team from what we faced in pre-season, which makes this to be a mouth-watering encounter between the two teams.

Last week saw us face up against Selwyn United's Reserve team, where we ended up coming out comfortable 3-0 winners in the end. Although satisfied with the result, we know that we ought to be more clinical when we create chances at the frequency we did on Saturday. It was great to see our strike force create mayhem, where Patrick Cameron and Conor Clarke both scored, as well as Jacob O'Connell duly dispatched a penalty that Josh Dempster created with his pace and trickery. It is pleasing to now see the football the lads have played over the last few seasons come to fruition much more consistently. It was also pleasing to see both Blessing Kahiya and Ollie Hawkins come on for their first-team debuts for Halswell United AFC. Ollie is someone who has helped fill in for the Reserves, where he has provided his leadership and experience and has been performing at a level I couldn't ignore so credit to him. Blessing, who has come up through the ranks at the club to make his debut, is just one of the many examples where young players will be given opportunities if they show continuous improvement and application in their game.

This week, we have Baxter Coughlan and Roshan Khatri coming back into the squad. Both players who were mainstays of the squad last season have had a very disrupted pre-season and start to the season but they have worked hard over the last few weeks to get themselves back in the first-team picture. I hope they now realise that they will need to continue working hard so they can stay in this environment week in and week out. We also have Thomas Owens who is in line to make his first-team debut due to Harry Eastwick's suspension dating back from last year's semi-final clash against Christchurch United. This is an opportunity for Tom to step up and show he is ready to compete at this level.

We look forward to seeing everyone here at the Nest supporting the lads and we can't say enough how much it is felt within the playing squads. Feel free to join us and have a chat with us at the post-match upstairs after the game. Enjoy the afternoon!