Now it’s the turn of the rest of the North Island for their little Premmy Files season roundups. Waitakere United, Hamilton Wanderers, and Hawke’s Bay United, in that order – which is both the order of north to south and also the order they finished on the table. The WeeNix will get their own one by the way, they’re a little different.

Waitakere United hit something close to rock bottom over the second half of last season as a number of senior players all left and their youngbloods were chucked in at the deep end. That now turns out to have been a much more deliberate plan than it first appeared, and with Paul Hobson taking over this time around and a very useful (and cost-saving) partnership with Western Springs being formalised we got to see how the seeds of all those back-nine defeats helped set them up for 2019-20. This was again a very young team, plenty of NZ age-group reps involved... but with the focus all aligned it was also a very competitive team.

Wins against the Wellington Phoenix and Tasman United got it all off to a rocking start however they were unable to win any of their next six games. Three 1-1 draws as well as a 4-2 defeat to Hawke’s Bay away and heavy home losses to Southern (5-2) and Auckland City (6-2). Granted they got a solid draw vs Team Welly in there (which they should’ve won, conceding in injury time) and were leading over Hamilton Wands when that game was called off early in the second half so maybe not as bad as it seemed. Yet there were definite feelings that this was a team that may struggle to raise themselves above the rest of the pack behind ACFC and Team Welly.

So then, naturally, they won their next four games in a row and, after narrow defeats to Southern and HW, then beat up on Hamilton 3-0 a week later (because of the rescheduled first game and then the gaps in the draw they played HW in consecutive weeks, losing away and winning at home) and closed with a 5-2 win over Hawke’s Bay that had them already guaranteed in the top four when the league ended. For as proud a team as the Waitaks, with the heritage they have in this competition, that’s a pretty big deal.

Defensively they had their issues at times. Just the three clean sheets despite having a hugely impressive import keeper in Nick Draper between the sticks (one of those clean sheets was actually for Elliot Munford after Drapes was injured for the effective return leg vs HW). But they mostly made up for that with their potency up top, being the only team in the competition to score in every single game. No kidding. Dane Schnell was the head honcho there with 11 goals to his name, tied for second in the golden boot ranks and he did that from midfield. He got plenty of help there though, Alex Connor-McClean scored six times including a double in a 2-0 win over Tasman and the dramatic late winner against the WeeNix. Jake Porter also chipped in with four, while Sam Burfoot scored three and at least a couple of those were stone cold stunner.

The thing that struck most watching Waitakere was their system. They shaped up in a 3-4-1-2, the back three most often helmed by Flynn O’Brien, Luke Searle, and Robert Tipelu. Shuaib Khan also got a few games when others were injured or unavailable too. The games when they had O’Brien/Searle/Tipelu starting, they had 5 wins, 2 draws, and 1 loss conceding only 11 times which adds up to 1.4 goals per game. Compare that to the 2.6 they conceded when one of the triumphant trio was missing. Searle and Tipelu are both younger fellas too, early 20s I think, which is in keeping with the rest of the squad. Bobby Tips has been in and around the Olympic scene too, part of both the Pacific Games squad and also the qualifiers. He wasn’t alone there either, Dane Schnell and Jake Porter both played big parts in that qualifying crew.

Moving upwards and it was Sam Burfoot in the midfield alongside Gerard ‘Triple G’ Garinga Gibert who ran the show from the heart of it, Burfoot in particular who added a real touch of class to the team throughout a superb season from him. They were usually flanked by Lachie McIsaac and Clarke Foulds at wingback though Regont Murati was an increasingly common presence as the season went on. Again, McIsaac is 22 years old and Clark Foulds is 21 years old. Keeping up the trend. You then had Schnelly (20yo) in that attacking midfield role with Nic Zambrano (23yo) partnering either ACM (20yo) or Porter (22yo) up topskees. Give or take the odd change in there but that’s pretty much the baseline with their selections and that hierarchy and consistency probably did them plenty of good.

👏 The @ISPSHanda Premiership Player of the Week is Dane Schnell, who scored twice and now has 1⃣1⃣ goals for the season! 👊 #ISPSHandaPrem #WhoYouGot pic.twitter.com/3uXuAIQH4I
— New Zealand Football (@NZ_Football) March 17, 2020

Like in close games, for example. This season was bonkers for late drama all across the board but the Waitaks in particular couldn’t stay out of it (neither could the Tron Wands for that matter). Waitakere scored nine of their 35 goals, that’s more than a quarter of them, after the 80th minute and they conceded seven more in that time frame. Whether they were just extra tinsel on the tree or genuine game-changers you never wanted to leave a Waitakere game early – Alex Connor-McClean was the king of the late goal scoring four of his bangers in squeaky bum time. Six of their games were defined by late goals, mostly for the better but not always...

1-1 draw with Cantabs, scoring in 81st min
1-1 draw with Team Welly, conceding in 94th min
4-3 win over WeeNix, conceding in 92nd min and scoring in 96th min
2-1 win over Cantabs, scoring in 85th min
1-0 win over Suburbs, scoring in 81st min
3-2 loss to Tron Wands, conceding in 93rd and 95th min

Plenty of chaos in all that but once the ironing’s done and the board put back in the closet, Waitakere United ended with 27 points and were third on the table by a clear five with two games remaining. Games they might well have lost against Team Wellington and Auckland City, both away, but nonetheless they couldn’t finish lower than fourth and even then it would have taken them losing twice and Eastern Suburbs winning twice for that to happen. There are a number of excellent performers in that Waitaks squad but coming off what they were after last season and with an initial peek at their squad it woulda taken a brave person to predict them ending in third place. This team won six of its last eight games and were probably the club that most exceeded expectations. For a young side in the first full season after a rebuild... that’s pretty remarkable.

Sliding down to the banks of the mighty Waikato River now, where Hamilton Wanderers had a campaign that made about as much sense as a chocolate teacup and was every bit as much fun. Well, not at first, to be fair. At first they were a rank disaster as they were smashed in four of their first five games, the hefty margin of defeats only making that lone pillar 3-0 win over Eastern Suburbs in the middle of it all the more baffling. Then, after five games during which they conceded 18 goals in four defeats, Ricki Herbert resigned as head coach and ceremoniously handed the keys to the car to his son and assistant Kale Herbert.

Now, some folks might use a word like ‘nepotism’ in such a situation but those folks are basic folks. Not only because there’s nepotism all the way through the footy community in Aotearoa but also because... after his first game in charge was rained off, Kale Herbert led a straight up revolution by winning four games in a row. That had the Tron Wands sitting halfway through their season with 15 points and a gambler’s shot at making the playoffs for the first time ever. Rather incredible yarns there... until they only took 5 points from their remaining seven games with just one win. There were some heartbreakers in there, same as they were dishing out the heartbreakers earlier in the season. It was madness from top to tail.

Part of the reason that the Tron Wands were so all over the place was that their selections, for various reasons ranging from form to injury to suspension and all the usuals, were kinda all over the place. Not in goal, where Matty Oliver started every single game. Nor up front where Derek Tieku also started every single game while Tommy Semmy started all but one and was first man off the bench in that one. But everywhere else was like shuffling cards and it tended to be reflected in the results.

In midfield, for example. The three dudes who started most often were Jake Butler, Brad Whitworth, and Xavier Pratt. They only started five games all together though, with HW winning three of them (Butler left midseason). Or in defence where one of the great modern trends was in evidence as Wanderers lost the first four games that Brock Messenger didn’t play and won the first five that he did. That trend eased off after a 3-0 defeat to Suburbs that ended the perfect Kale start and semi-crushed the Brock stat but it still holds up alright at the conclusion of it all:

HW with Messenger: 10 GM | 6 W | 2 D | 2 L | 20 GF | 15 GA | +5 GD | 20 PTS

HW w/o Messenger: 6 GM | 0 W | 0 D | 6 L | 4 GF | 24 GA | -20 GD | 0 PTS

So, basically, when Brock Messenger was in the team Hamilton Wanderers were a top four side. When he wasn’t they were the worst team in the competition (to be fair, he missed both Auckland City games – combined score of 1-8 – so that did skew the balance). Messenger was really good for them too, it’s not just a matter of a flukey stat, he genuinely made them better with his no-nonsense defending and physical presence. Similar capabilities offered by mid-season acquisition Joe Harris who was able to fill in a bit of everywhere for them but especially at centreback and he offered a bit more stability even as the wheels began falling off down the stretch.

The problem there was that they just didn’t have a goal scorer. German import Thilo Wilke played the first six games, not sure if he was an out and out striker or not but he only scored once. Derek Tieku carried most of the goal scoring, getting eight of them all up including hitting the net in five of their six wins. Probably woulda wanted more than just four from the big man Tommy Semmy to be honest, he was still a handful for anybody but wasn’t quite at the same level this term as he was last time when he was borderline one of the two or three best attacking players in the comp (and scored 10 goals). But Tieku and Semmy are supporting dudes, they needed a Martin Bueno to pull it all together in that front three. Except Bueno was away scoring goals for Eastern Suburbs this time around and they never adequately replaced him. Jama Boss played a few games after moving from Tasman over Xmas. Import JC Mack was an attacking midfielder with a fair bit of flair but perhaps didn’t quite settle on the park. They signed Henry Fa’arodo near the end of it all but he only got to play one game before the season was called.

Check out all the best moments from one of the most entertaining games this year in the ISPS Handa Premiership. Video courtesy of SKY Sport NZ.

The guy who showed the most promise was George Ott. He was one of a number of dudes from the 2019 NYL squad that so nearly won that title. Kale Herbert coached those lads as well and were it not for a late Auckland City goal then they’d have had it, shades of the ol’ Premier League season back in the day when Sergio Aguero scored that famous Agueeerooooo goal. But it just shows you that the work being put into the local youth scene there, particularly by the Herbert clan, is doing wonders. George Ott is a tall striker. He’s a target man of the Chris Wood variety who was a regular off the bench and also started a few games down the back half. Most crucially he scored two goals including the late winner against Waitakere.

Plenty of promise there, same deal with left-back Adam Davidson who started eight games and came off the bench four times. Cory Townsend and Jack Portegys also popped up as subs along the way and there’ll be plenty more where they came from coming out of that 2019 NYL class over the next year or two. The other guy to mention here who is a little older and signed from Hawke’s Bay United was Jordan Lamb. Attacking midfielder, plenty of skill, played 15/16 games, six of them starts.

Other than that you can look to regular Tronny favourites like Xavier Pratt, Joe Nottage, and Jordan Shaw. Maybe a bit of Tino Contratti in there too. Matt Oliver obviously. Kohei Matsumoto missed most of the season but was back in there towards the end. If they’d only had that one top tier striker to put away their chances then they might have really pushed it. Having said that, they had two games left and those were against Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury, the two bottom teams and two sides they’d already beaten. They were only two points behind Eastern Suburbs. Even as it stands a sixth place finish ties their record finish from last season and despite playing two fewer games they earned more points this time. Remember they were last from post to post in the 2017-18 season. In that context they’ve done superb.

And, yes, like Waitakere this lot sure loved a late goal. There was Jake Butler’s 94th minute winner against Hawke’s Bay. A week later they were 1-0 down in Canterbury with eight minutes left on the clock only to win it 3-1. Xavier Pratt should’ve had an 82nd minute winner against Southern too only for Garbhan Coughlan to level in stoppage time, similarly they lost 2-1 to the WeeNix at Eden Park in an A-League curtain raiser to an 88th minute goal from Riley Bidois. The pièce de résistance was when they scored twice after the 90th minute to go from 2-1 down to win 3-2 against Waitakere, then their campaign concluded with an 87th minute leveller from Tasman United. A few that they snatched from the jaws of defeat, a few where they got their hands bitten off by those same jaws. Never not entertaining.

Not sure if that same tag would apply to Hawke’s Bay United. The boys from the Bay began things in red hot form as North American imports Dylan Sacramento and Ahinga Selemani brought some pizazz to proceedings. They did well to fight back to only lose 3-2 to Auckland City in week one having been three down at the break but then whipped out a six-game unbeaten streak that was only ended by that Jake Butler goal in defeat to Hamilton on the telly. The 4-2 win over Waitakere looks especially good in hindsight.

At that point co-coaches Chris Greatholder and Bill Robertson had everything humming. They didn’t even make a change to their starting eleven until the fifth game. It was a back three with Fergus Neil, Coach Robbo himself, and emerging local fella Kaeden Atkins, with Karan Mandair and Gavin Hoy flanking a midfield of Josh Signey and Sho Goto while Sacramento played the ten behind Selemani and Ole Academy signing and Pacific Games champion Ihaia Delaney. Ruben Parker in goal, of course. Seven games in and they were clear third on the table, the emphasis on local players really paying off while their carefully chosen imports were doing wonders. Signey in the midfield was every bit as impressive as Sacramento and Selemani.

But then Dylan Sacramento left. His last game was the defeat to HW and that game, coming straight off six unbeaten, sparked a run of five defeats in a row. They snapped that run with a 2-1 win over the Cantabs but then lost three more to close which left them lingering second to last. Some of those games were really close... but the more they had to diverge from that initial starting eleven the more they struggled for consistency and all the defensive worries that had haunted them last time returned.

Hawke’s Bay conceded 44 goals in 16 games. That’s five more than anyone else and so far past the signpost of Not Good Enough that it was merely a dot in the distance. They kept one clean sheet, that was in a 2-0 win over Tasman back in week three before Tasman had even scored a goal. Also they only let one in when they beat the Canterbury Dragons. Other than those two games they conceded at least twice in every one of them. Mate, if you’re shipping that kind of baggage then it almost doesn’t matter who you’ve got up front. Even Lionel Messi might have trouble overcoming that kind of handicap each week (mostly because of the existential crisis that’d no doubt cripple him when he asks himself how he ended up playing Premiership footy in New Zealand... plus he’d get snapped in half and he’s small enough to begin with). Like, even in that six-game unbeaten streak they were getting by with these scores: 4-3 (WeeNix), 2-0 (Tasman), 2-2 (Cantabs), 3-3 (Suburbs), 2-2 (Southern), 4-2 (Waitakere). Apart from the last few games when the steam really went out of them, the problem wasn’t that they started conceding more... it was that they stopped scoring enough to make up for how many they were leaking all along.

It was also weird when their depth was tested and they called upon extreme veterans Adam Cowan and Richard Gillespie. Cowan is 39 years old, still fit enough but odd for a team that had put a priority on local youngsters and had otherwise been pretty good with all that. Gillespie was more of a freak incident, two keepers were out injured so Gilly came out of retirement to be surely the only acting school principal to play Premiership footy. They did do well to get Angus Kilkolly back in the black and white after a midseason transfer from Team Welly where he wasn’t really playing. Kilkolly added three goals for the lads down the stretch. Selemani was the main man there however. 10 goals all up, fourth on the league list. And he was more than just a finisher, creating plenty and generally looking the goods up front. Probably HBU’s best player.

As for the youth stuff, like I said they weren’t kidding around. CG & BR really did blood the next gen lads, with Kaeden Atkins the leader starting 12 games in that back three and looking nice and unruffled. Jorge Akers had his breakout last season so was more of a known quantity, a left winger/back with plenty of pace and he played 13 times, seven of them starts. Ihaia Delaney only missed one start, he also added five goals as well as a measure of consistency that ain’t always obvious from 21 year olds. Kenny Willox has come through the NYL pipeline (RIP the NYL) and only started one game in midfield when Josh Signey was suspended but played plenty off the bench, he looks a tidy player. Same goes for the little glimpses as a sub of Sam Wall and Liam Shackleton - each part of the 2019 NYL squad.

The season overall was a bummer for HBU but the early days should give them something to build from, particularly if they can hit on their imports as well as this again – or retain these chaps – considering there’s plenty of fellas on the rise all with a connection to the club who can be the core to build around these next few years. Only issue there is that they have to retain them. The Premierships is absolutely scattered with ex-HBU players doing great things for other franchises (particularly Team Wellington it seems... probs a Central League thing). Expectations will have been much higher than this from a season where Napier City Rovers were Chatham Cup champions but maybe with a little more stability that’s what next season can be for.

Other 2019-20 Premiership Team Reviews:

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