City United ends four year drought

 By LARRY ANDREW

City United Football Club ended four years of drought to lift the John Kapi Nato Cup in the Lae Football Association 2013 grand final.

They beat defending champions Poro 1-0 on Saturday.

The Poro women made it back to back to retain the cup for a second year by holding off Bara 1-0 in the women’s division.

In the other division finals Bugandi edged Sentas 5-4 in the Under-17 final, Hapa beat Zilu Scientific West 4-3 to claim the U20 girls tag, City United defeated LBC Esso 1-0 in the U20 boys match, Savannah Breeze blew off Naka 2-1 to pick up the men’s first division title and Busu belted Saints 3-0 in the men’s B league final.

The cup for the men and the women’s champions have been sponsored by Kapi Nato for three years, with one more year remaining.

City United, with the services of national player Jeremy Yasasa, captain Alex Kamen, Cooper Ipako and Began Yanum, bombarded Poro’s goal mouth from the start with their coordinated set passes, but could not get past evergreen Poro’s defender Matheson Nasa, who put his body on the line.

The opportunity opened for the City boys in the 36th minute when Ipako brought home the first and only goal of the game, capitalising on the mistakes of the Papuan compound-based team, and then they hang on to the lead towards halftime break.

Poro bounced back in the second quarter to diffuse City United’s attacking game and applied more pressure but could not get past City’s strong defence.