Nothing between New Zealand and Peru – All Whites midfielder Ryan Thomas

  • 11/11/2017
Thomas came agonisingly close to scoring the match-winning goal.
Thomas came agonisingly close to scoring the match-winning goal. Photo credit: Photosport

All Whites midfielder Ryan Thomas believes New Zealand proved they can hang with the best as they shared the honours with Peru in Wellington on Saturday.

The visitors started the stronger of the two World Cup hopefuls in the intercontinental playoff match, but it was the Kiwis who dominated proceedings late on, coming agonisingly close to snatching the win.

It was Thomas, who had the best of the chances, but put his effort just wide of the goal, which would have given New Zealand a massive boost heading into the second leg.

The 22-year-old admitted to be disappointed to have not found the back of the net, but is confident the All Whites head to Lima with a great deal of optimism.

“Winning the game 1-0 is something we would have been very happy with going over there and unluckily it just nicked the post and went wide,” Thomas said.

“But overall, it was a good result; it was a good performance from the boys.

“We’re feeling there’s nothing between these two teams and we can go there full of confidence we can get a result.

“The ranking we have doesn’t show what we can achieve, we see ourselves as a top 50 team at least, and that showed right there we can match with the big teams.”

Thomas went agonisingly close to scoring a goal late on in the game.
Thomas went agonisingly close to scoring a goal late on in the game. Photo credit: Getty

While the New Zealand camp are pleased with the result, Thomas conceded that they should have made their late dominance of the South Americans count.

“It’s a bit mixed emotions, we thought we quite good in the last 15 minutes, we put them under the pump and we could have got something at the end there,” Thomas said.

New Zealand were dealt an early blow before the game had even started, with star striker Chris Wood forced to play from the bench as he continues to deal with a hamstring injury.

Thomas however had nothing but praise for his side’s effort to cope with the loss, and despite starting the game without arguably their best player, believes the replacements filled the big boots of the Burnley forward.

“It was difficult with ‘Woodsy’ missing, with someone with such a big role ‘Woodsy’ has, it’s always difficult missing a player like that,” Thomas said.

“Kosta and Marco did very well up front and created a lot of chances for themselves and there was nothing missing.”

Newshub.