Solomon Islanders give victory for their teams in the New Zealand Football Championships

Two prominent Solomon Islands soccer players, Commins Menapi and Benjamin Totori, have scored crucial winning goals for their respective teams to secure full match points in the prestigous New Zealand Football Championships yesterday.

During the game between Waitakere United and Team Wellington at Douglas Field in Waitakere, Commins Menapi scored twice with the opening goal for Waitakere coming in just three minutes of play in the first half. In the 71st minute, Menapi turned provider for Jakub Sinkora after he was put through on goal by Commins Menapi and showed good composure to take it around the keeper and slot it home into an empty goal to ensure a 3-1 lead against Team Wellington. Wellington came strongly and scored their second goal in the 76th minute. Just as Wellington were about to snatch an equaliser Menapi scored his second after a quick counter attack from Waitakere's defence to finish the match with a resounding 4-2 win to maintain the lead at the top of the table after 17 rounds.

In another game at the Caledonia Ground in Dunedin between second place runners YoungHeart Manawatu and Otago United, Benjamin Totori takes advantage of a mistake by Otago keeper Peter Evans to volley home for an early goal for Manawatu after 12 minutes into the first half. The game ended with a 1-0 win for Manawatu to ensure their second place on the table after 17 rounds of matches. The winning goal was Totori's 21st of the season, ten ahead of closest rival Little Graham of Team Wellington who has 11 goals, and 12 ahead of Commins Menapi with just 9 goals.

A third Solomon Islander, Henry Fa'arodo also created a penalty for Canterbury in the 22nd minute, from which a winning goal was scored to beat Waikato 1-0.