Mark Wakefield

South Hobart were made to work hard on Sunday night at Wentworth Park to earn the three points against a stubborn Clarence United outfit at Wentworth Park. Clarence stuck to their plans in order to stifle South’s natural passing game and it took until the second half for South to eventually open the scoring.

The opening half was a struggle that saw both teams create few chances. South dominated possession and the few chances that did fall, fell the way of South. But try as they might, they were denied repeatedly by some scrambling defence in the final third by Clarence, especially from their central defensive pairing of Grant Malcolm and Adam Hedge.

It was particularly evident in the first half just how much South Hobart missed a true striker. Last night they relied on a rotating false 9, where the load was largely shared between Nick Morton and Kobe Kemp. Morton will be pining for the return to fitness of both Ben Hamlett and Alex Leszczysnki to bolster their chances as the season progresses. South looked like a frustrated team at half time, and Morton must have given his chargers some good messages at half time as they came out a much more incisive team in the second half.

Kobe Kemp took the game by the scruff of the neck in the opening ten minutes of the second half and it was his individual brilliance that threatened to take the game completely away from Clarence. In the 49th minute, he received a ball from 35 yards out and worked his way towards goal before unleashing an unstoppable drive that flew into the left hand side of goals to make it 1-0.

In the 77th minute it was 2-0 as Jacob Leaman fed the ever industrious Liam Quaile down the left wing. Quaile’s cross-cum-shot floated towards the goals and Darby Randall could only succeed in pushing the ball into the back of the net.

Clarence finally threw caution to the wind and shook of their defensive shackles and took the game to South Hobart for the last 15 minutes. In the 80th minute they were rewarded for their more offensive approach when the excellent Paul Bremner was scythed down in the box by Daniel Brown. Malcolm stepped up to take the spot kick and duly dispatch it to put Clarence back in with a chance of getting something out of the game.

Clarence kept pushing and had a couple more half chances with Bremner blazing over the bar after a free rebounded to him and then Nick Naden’s cross late in the game was slightly overcooked and just evaded Bremner as he had found acres of space in what was certainly a huge chance to equalise had the cross been weighted slightly better.

Connor Schmidt then killed the contest when he found space in the second minute of injury time and strode down the right wing to deliver a final blow to Clarence. He surged forward and tucked his chance into the bottom left of the net to make it 3-1 for South Hobart.

South Hobart coach Ken Morton was pleased with the result,

“Good result, Clarence were very disciplined, defended very well and got bodies behind the ball.”

“We kept possession well… we wanted to get a bit more movement, bit more interchange on the flanks.” “Quailey made some super runs and crosses.”

“Benny was missed today, but he’s recovering well and we expect him to be back next week.”

Clarence United coach Alan Jablonski was disappointed with the end result,

“disappointing… the game plan was there and I thought the game plan was sound and like I just said to the boys, if you’ve got 90 per cent of the guys doing it and 10 per cent not at any stage of the game it doesn’t work.”

“You almost have to play the perfect game (to beat South Hobart) and we nearly did.”

“You can’t deny the lads the effort.”

“We’re a counter attack side but I thought we also showed there in the last fifteen that we’re a side that can go forward and put a lot of pressure on as well.”