Glenorchy Knights stayed top of the NPL Tasmania standings despite being held to a 1-1 draw at home at KGV Park by South Hobart.
The two title contenders for the 2022 season were disappointing and must have given the other teams in the competition a glimmer of hope.
Both sides missed good chances and had to settle for a draw in the end.
An inability to finish easy chances is becoming a characteristic of all the NPL teams.
If a team unearths a good finisher, he will be worth his weight in gold.
Knights were without goalkeeper Reef Murfett, who has a shoulder injury. His replacement was his understudy, Alex Woodham, who acquitted himself well.
The home side was also without Nick Mearns, who seems to be having a year off while he builds a house, and Lucas Hill, who has also called it a day with the Knights.
Their new signing from Olympia, Kyle Vincent, headed them into the lead from Austin Yost’s corner from the right in the 35th minute. South’s defence seemed uncertain and Vincent outjumped a couple of defenders to head the ball down and into the roof of the net after one bounce.
It took South Hobart until the 75thminute to draw level. Lachlan Semmler’s deep left-wing cross eluded both Eli Luttmer and Jack Bowman and carried through for Nick Morton to prod home.
South Hobart almost snatched a late victory, but Josh Divin’s effort smacked the crossbar and rebounded into play.
Devonport Strikers made hard work of beating Olympia Warriors away at Empire Couriers Park.
Surprisingly, Devonport left at least four experienced players on the bench in Joel Stone, Bick Lanau-Atkinson, Raphael Reynolds and Dominic Smith.
The visitors threw everything at Olympia in the first half but were guilty of some incredible misses.
Roberto Fernandez Garrido and Brody Denehy will have nightmares about some of their misses. Some efforts, it is true, went wide by the narrowest of margins, but other chances that were missed were open goals.
Garrido settled Devonport’s nerves when he ran onto a through ball and fired past keeper Mitch Stalker on the stroke of half-time.
Olympia missed a wonderful chance to level when they were awarded a penalty in the 74th minute, but Jake Vandermey put his spot-kick harmlessly over the bar.
Stone was introduced early in the second half, but it was not until the final quarter of an hour that Devonport scored three more times to give the score-line a semblance of respectability.
Garrido completed his hat-trick, while Stone also found the net.
Olympia defended energetically and resolutely for most of the game, but ran out of legs in that last 15 minutes.
Launceston City downed Riverside Olympic 4-0 at home at Buckby Motors Park on Friday night to move temporarily rto second on the standings.
Daniel Smith gave City the lead after 8 minutes and Jarrod Linger added a second 3 minutes later.
Albert Rai netted twice to complete he home side’s victory. His first came in the 40th minute to make it 3-0 at half-time, while his second, and City’s fourth, came 3 minutes after the resumption.
.JPG)
NPL Tasmania Standings (As at 2 April 2022)
| TEAM | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
| Glenorchy Knights | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 7 |
| Devonport Strikers | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 6 |
| Launceston City | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 6 |
| South Hobart | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 4 |
| Clarence Zebras | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Kingborough Lions | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Olympia Warriors | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 12 | 0 |
| Riverside Olympic | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 0 |
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