A slew of shots were sent goalwards by both teams as Solomon Islands searched for their first victory at the tournament, while Vanuatu hoped to continue their winning ways.
Unfortunately both sides found their finishing lacking with eight shots apiece going off-target, and Solomon Islands sending just four directly at the goal to Vanuatu’s five efforts.
While it was by no means the result Vanuatu were hoping for, or looking for, but assistant coach Anthony Pisano says it’s too late to change it now.
“We didn’t exactly play to the game plan. We were still fairly tight in defence as we knew Solomons were going to come at us and they’re a great technical team,” he says.
“We stayed focused and defended quite well and had our chances. Again, we were just punished for not taking them. A first half header hit the post and our decision making today was pretty poor and something we need to work on before our next match.”
Pisano says the draw doesn’t rule his side out of the title chase.
“It’s made it a lot more difficult for us and we’ve got to win pretty much all three of our next matches,” he rues.
“We were really looking for a win today so it’s set us back a little bit but who knows. We’re still in with a good shot.”
Midfield playmaker Bong Kalo picked up a late injury during the match and several other key players looked to have picked up niggles – something Pisano says could influence their next encounter against American Samoa.
“In any tournament like this where you’re playing every two days it’s going to be difficult. But we’ve got a relatively strong bench so I would say there’s going to be a couple of changes going into the next match.”

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