The Premmy Files – Week 4
It’s always a happy occasion when the WeeNix get to play a bit of curtain-raiser footy at the big stadium before the A-League team. Especially because that’s the only time they ever get a home game on telly – they’ve got another one of these in January when the league resumes and then another a month later in Auckland at Eden Park. Not really sure why there was a two hour break in between the end of this game and the Welly Nix vs Brisbane Roar game kicking off, kinda defeats the purpose of even raising the curtains, but whatever, we’re used to these weirdnesses.
Anyway it was the WeeNix on telly for the first time this season against Auckland City getting their second televised performance in four weeks and the second of four telly games in the first seven rounds. That’s a lot of focus on Jose Figueira’s team but based on the way they’re tracking that’s about fair enough. For the fourth game in a row their midfield/wingback four was unchanged with Jordan Vale, Cam Howieson, Mario Ilich, and Andrew Blake setting the tone in the middle third of the park while Adam Mitchell, Mario Bilen, Myer Bevan, and Logan Rogerson have yet to miss a game either. Conor Tracey started in goal once more with Enaut Zubikarai still on compassionate leave, while Angel Berlanga came in to make a record appearance for the Navy Blues and, most frighteningly of all, David Browne started his first game of the term having fully overcome his preseason injury (probably confirmed when he scored that beauty of a goal last week, chucking in the big dummies and putting defenders on their arses at will).
It didn’t even take quarter of an hour before Logan Rogerson was dusting himself off having won a penalty. But oddly, despite Myer Bevan having been knocking away goals in his sleep lately (including from the penalty spot and including after Rogerson had won a spotty last week), it was Rogerson himself who stepped up to take it and he kinda sorta ballooned it. Whoopsadaisie. Rogerson has had a superb start to the season but that wasn’t one of his better moments... especially not as a former WeeNix lad himself.
That actually made it awkward for Auckland City, who continued to boss the game with Cam Howieson dishing the ball all over but the breakthrough proved hard to come by against a deep and compacted WeeNix defensive line... albeit a very different one to the back four from the 2-2 draw with Team Welly. There were changes across the board, that’s what happens the week after the top team has a bye. Oli Sail, Sam Sutton, Cam Devlin, Ben Waine, and Liam McGing all stepped up to the A-League bench while Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi also didn’t play and Callan Elliot missed his second straight match. That meant first starts this season for Kris Naicker, Harry Bark, and Henry Hamilton while Blake Driehuis also made his first start having scored a hatty off the bench two weeks ago. Lots of changes, significant chances, and extremely young ones too as Naicker, Hamilton, and Bark were all a part of the U17 World Cup squad.
ACFC were a tad unlucky not to get a second penalty when Adam Mitchell went down in the box, though they got their next appeal upheld with Zac Jones taking out Myer Bevan and Bevan stepped up to score, sending Jones the wrong way, and finally breaking the deadlock late in the half. That’s Bevan’s seventh goal in four games so far and he’s scored in every single one of them... something you could say about four players last week but just the one now after four rounds. Bevan’s already got a three-goal lead at the top of the golden boot stakes.
There was never any question that Auckland City would stop there. The WeeNix battled extremely well in defence but ACFC were too sharp and too quick to win the ball back for them to build much of anything on attack and even if they had snatched an equaliser they still would have had to limit this City attack and nobody’s been able to do that yet. Dylan Manickum took the doubt out of the contest by tapping in with basically his first touch after replacing Browne with about ten minutes left. Logan Rogerson with a lovely assist in there. Jordan Vale then thumped one in from the edge of the area which the net was lucky to even be able to contain and that was your 3-0 result right there, folks. City having already scored 13 goals in four games and they go clear at the top of the ladder. Definitely not a vintage performance but a comfortable win all the same.
Meanwhile the WeeNix drop back to last as the only team yet to win a game because something amazing happened on Sunday afternoon in Nelson. Not only did Tasman United score their first goal of the season and not only did they do it against Team Wellington but they kept a clean sheet as well and if you’re not up for doing some basic maths in your head as you read this then let me elucidate... Tasman beat Team Wellington 1-0.
Jean-Philippe Saiko scored the only goal of the game midway through the second half, converting from the penalty spot. He’d already put one away earlier but a foul in the build-up saw it disallowed. So it took them 331 minutes to get off the mark for the campaign and they still haven’t scored one from open play... but they do have some creative fellas out there and if Saiko takes a bit of confidence from this first strike then he’s a guy they can really build around. Shout out to youngster Jesse Randall on the first Premmy start as well having impressed off the bench a week ago.
But it was down the other end where the real heroes were. Cory Brown started his first game for Tasman and he was absolutely magnificent. The former Vancouver Whitecaps draft pick slotted in perfectly alongside Fox Slotemaker and up against the deliriously in-form Hamish Watson and Ollie Bassett that pair were able to shut them both down over ninety minutes. Bassett still had his moments, as he does, but they survived with some of that old classic backs-against-the-wall defence and got a massive, massive result out of it. Brown has been off the radar a little in recent times, not playing USL in the States this year, but if this is the impact he can offer then get excited. He and Slotemaker are an extremely strong partnership and both young local kiwi fellas too. Bit tricky for Billy Scott to get his spot back now... suddenly there’s more depth here than it seemed. And also how about Ricky Muir getting the start as well? He came into the midfield for Alexis Varela for (presumably) his National League debut having captained the Tasman NYL squad last season.
For Team Welly though... this is an issue. You can say it’s a one off game and sure, of course, but that’s now three games in a row without a win and while the draw up north against Auckland City was a solid result, being unable to beat the Wellington Phoenix reserves and Tasman United in consecutive games is concerning. This was an unchanged team from last week so still a very strong side. And they had the better of this game, they just couldn’t get the goals to show for it. Still early days. They’re far from the only team still ironing out the inconsistencies so far.
Southern United are one of them. The Southerners had a little dip after a convincing first up win over Tasman, losing back to back to Canterbury and Eastern Suburbs, but they bounced back fiercely with a 4-0 win over Hamilton Wanderers this week. Southern rolled out all the usual suspects with the only change from last week’s disappointing result in the rain being Tim O’Farrell coming back in for Javier Langley at left back. And they could not have had a better start. A cock-up at the back between Matt Oliver in goal for HW and defender Blake Weston saw the ball fall for Abdullah Al-Kalisy for an easy finish after just a single minute.
Then ten minutes later Conor O’Keeffe was able to avoid the offside flag and score what, amazingly, is his first ever goal for the club. The captain, having played in damn near every position for this club, finally getting on the scoresheet once. A touch of controversy to it though as the Tron Wands really thought it should have been offside after Danny Ledwith’s shot was deflected into O’Keeffe’s path... but the ref and lino consulted and let it stand.
It was a fine performance from the Southern front three of Al-Kalisy, Garbhan Coughlan, and Joel Stevens and for the most part Southern were able to handle their business in defence. As well as you can against Tommy Semmy and Derek Tieku of course, who are always going to create a few things through individual genius. A late challenge from Erik Panzer gave Wanderers a penalty that could have halved that deficit late, if only Liam Little hadn’t pulled off a stunner to deny Semmy. With his shins. Sometimes it just ain’t your day and that was the case for the Tron Wands who then conceded twice more in stoppage time. Al-Kalisy with his second followed by a rip-snorter from Stevens from way out. There you go. The only thing missing for Southern was another Coughlan goal but no need to get greedy with it.
Utter wonkiness from Hamilton Wanderers. The scoreline’s a bit out of whack from the run of play but their four games so far have read: 5-1 loss to Team Wellington, 3-0 win vs Eastern Suburbs, 5-0 loss to Auckland City, and now a 4-0 loss to Southern United. Three times they’ve lost by four goals and the other time they bloody won by three. Make sense of that if you can but not sure it’s possible.
Jake Butler was back in there for Wanderers, as was defender Andy O’Donoghue in the two changes from last week. But Blake Weston is the only guy in that backline who has started all four games for Ricki Herbert’s side and for a team with a -10 goal difference already despite having a 3-0 win in there that doesn’t seem like a great state of affairs. Some tough games in there to be fair... if they concede four next week at home to the WeeNix then we’ll really talk.
The other two games were supposed to clear things up and make some sense of the emerging mid-table scramble but a couple of draws didn’t really clear anything up at all. Canterbury United hosted Hawke’s Bay United. One change from last week for the Dragons with the goal scorer against Waitakere, Sean Liddicoat, not there and Tom Scott replacing him in the lineup. Pretty consistent there but nowhere near as consistent as Hawke’s Bay United who have now named an unchanged eleven in every game. Why not? They’re doing the job so might as well stay with it.
Cory Mitchell struck first for the Cantabs scoring five minutes in from a corner kick. The Dragons were good for that lead having started in the ascendency but HBU soon found their bearings and, in some real stonking south island heat, this one soon settled into its patterns and it was the Bay who were creating more of the chances. Some great goalkeeping from Danny Knight and a couple dodgy finishes meant it was still 1-0 going into the break and the oranges did the trick for the Cantabs who turned this into a real end to ender in the second half with a fair few efforts of their own. But after George King and Juan Chang-Urrea both went close for the Dragons it was Ahinga Selemani who finally buried one down at the other end with a beauty finish into the bottom corner and ten minutes later the Bay were in the lead as Sho Goto headed in from a free kick.
But we weren’t done there. Substitute Haris Zeb then set up Chang-Urrea for an equaliser snap-bang after Goto’s goal and in a game where both teams held leads there was ultimately no splitting them. A 2-2 draw means that both these teams have gone three games unbeaten now after losing their openers. Probably a bigger result for HBU considering they were on the road and needing to take something off one of the teams in that semi-final hunt to prove their worth (after wins over WeeNix & Tasman) though having created the chances to win this they might be a little bummed out too, if also vindicated. As far as vindication goes for the Dragons, they’ll claim plenty if they can keep this undefeated run going away to Team Welly next week and home versus ACFC the week after. In the very least we know for sure that they’re going to be a battle for any team to face – neither team has held a lead of more than one goal in a Canterbury United game yet (the only team that’s true for).
Which brings us to Eastern Suburbs versus Waitakere United and there was some drama here too, woah boy. Just before the half and Martin Bueno was given a red card for a swinging elbow or something like that. The Suburbs crew weren’t too happy with the decision, convinced that there was nothing in it, and tempers were on edge after that the rest of the way. Up until then Suburbs had been pretty good as their high profile attackers of Mohammed Awad, Stevie Hoyle, and Bueno himself were making things happen... but playing with ten men for the entirety of the second half meant they had to adjust to things and Tony Readings’ lot were definitely more pragmatic in looking to defend their lines after the red. Playing into that gale force breeze didn’t help them either.
Earlier Dane Schnell had given the Waitaks the lead after a bit of pinball in the box but Dylan De Jong had responded with a nice little goal of his own soon after. This was probably the first time Suburbs had been able to play their top strength team, Adam Thomas was back in there after missing last week, De Jong was also welcomed into the lineup again. On the other side Waitakere made one change with Clark Foulds getting his first start but they still have nine players who’ve started every game.
A draw probably suits both teams okay under the circumstances. Waitakere had a great chance to win it near the end but Danyon Drake made a top save to preserve the draw, no worries. Despite this young and inexperienced team and despite the mess this team found itself in last season, Waitakere have started the season undefeated and each week they just find a way. Dane Schnell and Sam Burfoot in particular are bossing that midfield. They’ve got a great keeper in Nick Draper. They’ve not conceded more than once in any game. It’s been impressive. And Suburbs will take a point having had to play with ten men into the wind for the entire second half – it’s a standard kiwi football truism that a stiff breeze is always worth a couple goals. Always.
Here’s a sneaky one to end on... the NZ U17s were at the World Cup when the new Premmy season kicked off, with Jose Figueira famously missing his first game in charge of ACFC, but those lads are all back now and while most have settled into NYL teams this was a crazy week for the U17s getting out there in the National League. The WeeNix had Kris Naicker, Henry Hamilton, and Harry Bark starting while Adam Hillis and Benjamin Old both came off the bench. Tasman United gave Jesse Randall his first Premmy start. Campbell Strong came off the bench for Eastern Suburbs (having started last week). Marko Stamenic was on the bench for Team Wellington too (didn’t see the TW subs so not sure if he got on or not). That’s at least seven players from that squad running around out there. Pathways.
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