HBU vs Waikato

The answer, my friend, was always blowing in the wind.

But as American folk singer Bob Dylan would sing: "How many games must teams play before they realise keeping the ball down in the breeze is a no-brainer?"

Neither Hawke's Bay United nor Waikato sufficiently adapted to the conditions after a tenacious defensive effort from the hosts in Napier secured them three points after a 2-1 win in the New Zealand Football Championship opener yesterday.

It was far from a cohesive effort from the new-look Bay franchise and head coach Jonathan Gould was brutally honest in his post-mortem.

Another sobering acknowledgement was the urgency to tweak "a couple of things" in an abbreviated league down to 14 matches this season.

"Even going forward I felt we weren't as fluid as we were against Team Wellington (last warm-up game) but that's what happens when you go into a game when something's on and the game isn't that easy then.

"You get nerves in the real thing and that's the levels we've got to get our boys up to when the competition's on and there's three points at the end of it," the former Scottish international said.

Conceding keeping the ball was part of the pep talk and a sensible option at the breather, Gould said it was difficult to execute under pressure.

With a stiff wind blowing almost the length of the pitch, Bay quickly discovered that too much muscle behind the ball was a futile exercise.

Resorting to some structured attacks the Bay drew first blood in the 14th minute when a well-weighted ball from midfielder Graham Fyfe found captain Chris McIvor unmarked on the right flank. McIvor ran to the line and angled the ball back to exciting Vanuatu international striker Seule Soromon, who pushed the ball into the net despite a scrambling sliding tackle from Waikato centreback Nathan Strom that only succeeded in impeding goalkeeper Jason Mann putting his body on the line.

Waikato, against the run of play, had one good chance but midfielder Shaun van Rooyen did not do justice to the cross from the left flank from Craig Wylie.

It was the hosts who went up 2-nil in the 26th minute after Olympian Cole Peverley's cross from just inside his half sat beautifully for Leon Birnie on the right flank. Birnie outpaced the defence into the 18m box to crisply place it into the left-hand corner with Mann trying to cut the angle off on the right.

The Bay defence had a Great Wall of Britain feel about it with Daniel Kirkup (ex-Carlisle United), Che Bunce (ex-Sheffield United), Wairarapa's James Oxtoby (ex-York City) and Chris Davies (ex-Welsh under-23 international) thwarting any Waikato raids.

Bay missed a few opportunities to score but it was predominantly Waikato after the breather. Steven Holloway rose above the Bay tall timber in the 54th minute to head in a cornerkick from Wylie on the right to make it 2-1.

Coach Edmonson then substituted Ben Hunt with Marcos Rojas in the midfield and the fresh legs immediately injected some impetus in the visitors' attack.

In the 67th minute Soromon's shot skew off his boot with no one to beat inside the 18m box.

But it was Gould's substitution in the 73rd - Solomon Island schoolboy Andrew Abba for Soromon - that had the Bluewater Stadium faithful roaring. The dreadlocked one had the Waikato defence in sixes and sevens with his deft footwork in the handful of breaks the Bay made.

A back heel from Abba went to no-man's land, with Fyfe mentally locked into a defensive mode 15m behind. Perhaps it was also an indication of more time to gel for myriad players but, if that's the case, then Waikato have more reason to bemoan a lack of cohesiveness, considering they hadn't played any warm-up games and it was their first game as a team.

Abba almost found the net again after his shot clipped McIvor's foot and beat keeper Mann but also shaved past the right upright to collective groans in the 83rd minute.

Try as Waikato did an equaliser proved elusive.

Unlike a relatively calm Edmondson, Bay coach Jonathan Gould seemed to have spent his energy springing out of the dugout akin to a jack in the box.

Edmondson was looking ahead to to their next "tough match" against Auckland on a new home ground at Centennial Park, Ngaruwahia, expecting a crowd of about 1000 in a carnival atmosphere after turbulent times for the franchise.

Said Waikato coach Dave Edmondson: "I think we were just a little bit naive earlier on and got caught but in the second half when we had the wind we made a big point of not relying on the wind and to keep playing football.

"We built in confidence in the second half and in all honesty we dominated but were unlucky not to get a point or even more out of it," he said as the franchise prepares for Auckland at their new ground in Ngaruwahia.