Former Honiara Football Association champion club, Marist FC, is struggling to maintain it’s footing in the current Solomon Island Premier League table.
Sitting fifth, they shared equal competition points with a vastly improved KOSSA FC. Their position, however, is not secured if they lose their next match and team coach Patrick Miniti will have to go back to the drawing board to come up with the winning strategy.
The loss of his most senior and experienced players namely Jack Samani and Abraham Iniga to PRK Souths in the Papua New Guinea’s National Soccer League (NSL) may be one reason for this misfortune.
Coach Miniti knows he has little option on the choice of players at his disposal but will hope to make up for it in the second round of the current league.
Miniti succeeded once before when Marist was still a young emerging club by winning the HFA competition and will use the same strategy to regain this status, using the younger players.
His immediate focus will be to get them back into the winning mode. Marist has one outstanding match before Round One ends and need to win it to maintain their position.
Five football clubs including current competition leaders, Koloale FC have completed their round one matches and are waiting for the second round to start. The others are KOSSA, Mars, Las United and Telekom.
Those clubs with outstanding matches include Marist, Makuru, Sunbeam, Laugu, Naha and Walas FC’s.
Current competition leaders Koloale FC may surrender their pole position to runner up Makuru if the latter wins its outstanding matches.
Having played all their matches in round one, Koloale enjoys one match buffer in terms of competition points.
However, their current position is not secured and unless the impossible happens, they surely will be pushed aside by Makuru which has three outstanding matches under its belt.
The two are separated from the rest of the clubs in their pool by at least three matches however, round two would be interesting as clubs yearn for the top position.
Panatina and Vura boys’ teams will fight for the right to play in the grand final of Honiara Primary Schools competition Tuesday week.
In confirming this, one of the organizers and SIFF Women’s Development officer, Ms Dianne Justus says the boys’ category has three pools and makes it awkward so they had to draw lots to pick one school out.
White River was picked therefore will now wait for the winner of the two schools to see which of them to play in the final. The losing school will automatically be placed in the third position while in the losers’ final a similar format is also used.
Burns Creek and Bishop Epalle will fight for the right to play off for fourth position against Mbua Valley.
Ms Justus says the matches will take place on Monday with finals on Tuesday for the boys’ category.
Meanwhile, the girls’ final is also featured in Monday’s fixtures at the SIFF Academy. Current champion Panatina will vie for their second title against St. Nicholas while Coronation will take on Bishop Epalle for the third and fourth place playoff.
Rangers and Las United football clubs will fight for one of the places up for grabs in the Solbrew Women’s soccer league this Saturday.
The semifinal match will be at Lawson Tama at 2pm before the Honiara Football Association matches are played.
The second semifinal match, between Flamingo and Marist women football clubs have been scheduled for Tuesday 17th October at the SIFF Academy.
SIFF women’s football development officer, Dianne Justus confirms the semi final matches saying the grand final will take place on Thursday at Lawson Tama.
She says play off for places have been scheduled for 4pm while grand final at 6pm.