Pondering on Tony Readings’ Departure and the Future of the Footy Ferns
Its funny, we were all pondering the impending departure of one national team manager and all of a sudden another goes ahead and unexpectedly resigns. Tony Readings has called time on his tenure in charge of the Football Ferns, a gig he’s held since 2011. He took them to two Olympics and a World Cup and was contracted through until the end of the 2019 World Cup but never mind that any more.
It means the tour to the USA, where the Ferns lost both games (3-1 and 5-0), were Readings’ last in charge. The upcoming games in Thailand will predictably be taken by U20s coach Gareth Turnbull – who’d be a significant favourite to get the job fulltime. Although having said that it’d be interesting if, say, Maia Jackman or someone like that (is there someone? There might be…) was working on a career in coaching and applied for the job, to see how much of a chance she/whoever would have of getting the appointment. But, and I’m saying this with zero inside info on this situation, it’ll probably be Turnbull. And that’ll be fine, he goes good.
Rumours of Anthony Hudson’s departure (still think he’s going, btw, despite the happy chatter with NZF) were enough to spark some debate about his legacy and achievements with the All Whites. Some people irrationally hate him, others don’t really care. There’s been some weird stuff on the communications front but to blame that all on Huddo and ignore NZ Football’s strong tendency towards wanting to control the fan conversation is reductive. The reality for Hudson is that the success of his stint with the AW’s is entirely dependent on how they go against Peru.
For Tony Readings it’s a different story. It’s way too hard to put six years with the Football Ferns into a simple context when the context of the team has evolved so much over that time. It was an evolution that was already well underway before Readings turned up but the team that he took to the 2012 Olympics – which made the quarterfinals, the only FF team to ever make it past the group stages at a World Cup or Olympics – was the first to feature such a chunk of professionals in the team.
Readings came in at a time where New Zealand had become automatic qualifiers (basically) at major tournaments and thus the best players were starting to get noticed. With that has come the revelation that female footy players in New Zealand could make a living at the game if they’re good enough. Which also coincided with actual currency being invested in the game worldwide, to where there’s now a genuinely sustainable (fingers crossed) top tier competition in America and the English Super League has been reconfigured in its most impressive incarnation to date – helped enormously by the investments made in their women’s teams by clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City. The Scandinavian leagues are quality, the German and French leagues are quality. Juventus just started a women’s team and signed a kiwi to its inaugural squad (Katie Rood for the win).
Stakes = raised. Stakes that are both an opportunity and a problem. An opportunity for the obvious reasons of being able to get the best players from Aotearoa earning a living for their work, dedicating their 9-5s to becoming the best players that they possibly can be. However when there isn’t the cash in New Zealand to provide similar opportunities, that’s when you get situations like the retirements of Abby Erceg, Sarah Gregorius and Jasmine Pereira.
Thus it’s been a difficult time to manage a national team like New Zealand’s, which makes it hard to judge how Tony Readings has done. Particularly when his employers were so obviously exploiting its locally-based players with their expectations of how much people could commit, putting their lives on hold for the elusive dream. Hence no more Jasmine Pereira in the team.
The Football Ferns Development Programme, while a few years too late in the implementation, has to be seen as a success for how it’s now providing a step-ladder to the pro ranks. Already the likes of Katie Rood and CJ Bott are making those steps. It’s not exactly recompensing the players for their time in the process but it is fast-tracking their development and players know that there’s a sacrifice to be made. There’s just only so long they can make that sacrifice for – the uni years, pretty much. But if the best players are getting overseas contracts within a year or two then you ensure the best players aren’t being lost to the game.
As Readings has suggested since announcing his departure, the Ferns are almost in a situation where they can name a completely professional squad of players. They could do so already if they didn’t mind an imbalanced mix of positions… which is suddenly a fascinating race because the All Whites have also never named a completely professional team. They should have except Moses Dyer keeps spoiling it. Whether they will or not for the Peru games probably depends on the semi-pro distinction of Rory Fallon’s Dorchester Town (in the English seventh tier).
Then aside from all of that you’ve also got the literal on-field results of the Football Ferns under Tony Readings. Go by the press releases and you’ll know all about how TR took the Fernies to their all-time highest world ranking of 16th and twice beat Brazil away from NZ, once in 2013 and once in 2015. Also that win over Cameroon that got them into the 2012 Olympic quarters. The rankings are dumb under any circumstance (you don’t win the game on paper!) but those others are massive highlights for sure. So was the win over Colombia at the 2016 Olympics that almost got the Ferns through as a third-place qualifier but they were no match for USA or France in their other games… tough group.
Several highlights in there and yet it always sorta felt like this team has underachieved. The 2015 World Cup was a definite disappointment as the Ferns went out bottom of their group after the usual problems: being unable to break teams down. Playing against the Netherlands, Canada and China was as good a group as they could’ve hoped for and the squad was red hot too. But a 1-0 defeat to Holland, a 0-0 with Canada and then 2-2 vs China meant they were gone-skees (another reason why world rankings are stupid).
Or the Cyprus Cup earlier this year when they conceded eight goals in three defeats before beating Hungary in their classification match. The tour to the States, despite the positive spin, was a disaster in term of pure results. A confusing one in terms of the manager too – they clearly weren’t gonna win those games but there didn’t seem to be a lot of thought towards developing squad depth either. Subs came late if they came at all. Olivia Chance got a bit of a run but Aimee Phillips played a total of 17 regulation minutes, Daisy Cleverley got 10, CJ Bott only 4, Marty Puketapu 1 and Katie Rood didn’t get on until the third minute of injury time in the second match. Anna Green didn’t play at all.
Chance’s chance was probably enforced too, what with Katie Duncan’s retirement (which was followed by Kirsty Yallop’s retirement). That’s two major midfielders gone, although the damage done to that position is offset by the massive strides that Katie Bowen has made over the last year or two and Rosie White’s newfound abilities in central midfield. Given that strikers like Phillips and Puketapu are starting to reach the level now, Rosie might soon find herself more valuable at CM for NZ.
The Ferns of the last couple of years have had the players to make things happen but they haven’t really had the tactics. One regular frustration has been the use of Hannah Wilkinson as a target striker but without surrounding her with players to link up with. She’ll win that header… but what’s she gonna do with it if she’s all alone? Wingers were sacrificed for fluidity which allowed the team to overload certain areas of the park… but they weren’t a pressing team, they were a sit-back-and-absorb-the-punches kind of team. Defensively they got it done with a condensed backline and some heroic displays but things haven’t been the same without Erceg. In games during 2017 the Ferns have lost five of six, scoring five yet conceding 16.
Either there’s a little rebuilding to be done, starting with the tour to Thailand, or there’s still a damn fine team in there that just needs a few tactical tweaks before it reaches its potential. Tactical tweaks that Tony Readings potentially wasn’t able to provide, despite the other positives that he brought to the Ferns. The players are there coming through though. And the foundations have been set. We’ll see where we go from here.
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