First match of the season is always a celebration, especially for Herkku-Papat reserve team. Season's opening opponent was this time IVFC, which Papat beat at 2011 season ending thriller in Castren. This time teams met in smallish Talvikkipuisto stadion. Game started with two quick goal, one in both end. Arto Oikarinen made his come-back to Herccu shirt after last played in 2005 by scoring two nice goals.First goal came in the beginning when he pressed IVFC defender, got the ball and easily finished the first goal of the season. It didn't take long for IVFC to respond when attacer Jussi Tuokkola lobbed the ball in from the halfway line to make the score 1-1. Papat tried to gain the control of the gama and score a few goals, but eventuallly at the half-time whistle score was 2-1 to IVFC.

Papat started to get the hang of the match and had a decent 30min period where Okarinen scored his second goal after a good pass by young Timo Rautio. More followed when goalscoring machine Miska Visuri got his first goal of the season with rightly timed slide to kick the ball in. Third one was a beautiful one, when winger Janne Kananen crossed the ball in the back of the net from the far away left-flank. Score was already 2-4 to Papat and it looked like match was going to end in Pappa-control. But IVFC did not gave up. Their playmaker Kimmo Juntunen got, dribbled past defender and scored a goal, 3-4. After that Papat got a few decent crosses into IVFC box, but none could be finished. IVFC's Juntunen was brought down at the edge of the penalty box and JP Savenius' free-kick went past the wall into the lower right corner to make the score 4-4 on the over-time.

To sum it up, despite losing the lead, Papat showed they can play if they want to. Hopefully the same working ethics and attitude will continue on Monday when Papat will face Pattijoen Tempaus at Talvikkipuisto clk 17:00.

Read IVFC's report from FutisForum2: http://futisforum2.org/index.php?topic=133342.msg6698037#msg6698037

Viitonen 4.5.2012: IVFC – Herkku-Papat 4-4 (2-1)

Goals: Arto Oikarinen x2, Miska Visuri, Janne Kananen

Line-up: Ebe, Toni, Kytis, TinkeSr, Ave, PeteA, Tiki, Railo, Janne, Juha, Asse, Miska, TinkeJr, Kossu, TimoT, MasaE, JP, Vesse