11 Jan 2011

Vanuatu football side looks ahead after NZ mauling

2:36 pm on 11 January 2011

Vanuatu have a few days to reflect and regather after being crushed 5-1 by New Zealand at the Oceania Under 17 football championship in Auckland yesterday.

The Young All Whites led 4-nil at half time and Vanuatu coach Wilson August says he was much happier with his side's second half performance, where they managed to get on the scoresheet and hold the home side to just one goal.

But he says they need to address their defensive problems ahead of Friday's clash with Fiji.

"Need to move forward and then have a look and the second game - we're going to work on our mistakes from New Zealand and then pick up for the last game."

So New Zealand now have a share of a four-way tie for first place in Group A, thanks in part to Papua New Guinea's shock 2-1 win over leaders Fiji in last night's other match.

Group B continues today with Solomon Islands taking on group leaders Tahiti and New Caledonia meeting the Cook Islands.

Solomons coach Chris Asipara says he wants his midfielders to provide better support to the squad's strikers.

At the moment the two midfielders were quite slower to move when the ball goes up front and also the two strikers played a bit wider. We are now going to look at concentrating inside the attacking third and putting the wide players coming in on the other side so that we can do some cutbacks and so on.