Youngheart drop way down table

Youngheart Manawatu no longer have their New Zealand Football Championship playoff ambitions in their own hands.

After being thumped 6-0 by Canterbury yesterday, they need to win their final four games and rely on other results to go their way if they want to finish in the top three.

YoungHeart are in seventh spot on 10 points and can finish with a maximum of 22, but two of their four games come against joint league-leaders Auckland City.

Yesterday's result moved Canterbury into fourth on 14 points, but the Dragons still have five games to play this season, while third-placed Otago (16 points) have three games left.

Team Wellington are in fifth on 12 points and Hawke's Bay jumped from the foot of the table to sixth on 11 points after beating the Wellingtonians 1-0 yesterday.

YoungHeart Manawatu captain Adam Cowan said things just didn't click yesterday.

"I'd say we just got totally outplayed in the first half, no commitment basically," he said.

"Just a poor first half and no excuses, but we went a man down."

Midfielder Cory Chettleburgh was shown a straight red card in a bizarre incident in the 50th minute which stemmed from him being fouled and led to him being dismissed for "violent conduct", according to a match official's report.

Cowan avoided getting into the specifics of the dismissal.

"It was huge for us. I don't want to get too much into the decision."

Cowan did indicate they would possibly lay a complaint about the conduct of the official and the Manawatu Standard understands the assistant referee Paul Cook may have pushed Chettleburgh after the pair exchanged words.

Midfielder Mikey Crisford and striker Campbell Banks were subbed after only 23 and 28 minutes respectively during the match which indicated things were going poorly early on.

"Pretty much nothing was going right so we tried to change things up a bit," Cowan explained, before saying the defence weren't the only people to blame for the scoreline. "I think it's all over the park to be honest.

"Some of the goals were defensive mistakes, some of them were midfield."

YoungHeart have lost five straight and Cowan said the playoffs looked a long way away now.

"We've got a mathematical chance but the next four games are just about playing as well as we can and getting off the bottom part of the table.

"It's not just today, it's been the last three or four games. We've just got to take a look at ourselves and change it."

YoungHeart's next game is in Hawke's Bay on Sunday, February 21, so they have two weeks to regroup and figure out how to tighten up a defence which has let in 12 goals in the past three games.

In other results, Auckland City came from behind to beat Waikato FC 2-1 and Waitakere United beat Otago 4-0.

Canterbury United 6 (Paul Dirou 21, Darren Overton 32, Matt Boyd 42, Tom Lancaster 61, Aaron Clapham 64, 67) YoungHeart Manawatu 0 HT 3-0.

- © Fairfax NZ News