The Premmy Files – Week 2 (Which Is Really Week 1)
It was a gutsy move from the top brass at Eastern Suburbs to welcome Ole Academy into their warm embrace this season. In some regards it was a dead simple decision, getting some of the best young talent in Aotearoa involved and all, but it was still brave because it meant gutting a squad that made the semi-finals last season. A squad with no shortage of belter prospects already at the club and thus huge potential to make natural improvements. But inviting Ole along means merging and adapting. It means evolution. It also means, as their website pointed out, that the game against Howkes Bay this week featured only two returning players for each team from the corresponding game last season - when HBU rocked up in AK and beat Suburbs 2-1 thanks to a double from Bjorn Christensen.
Now, to be fair, that game was early on before Suburbs settled into their groove so it ignores the emergence of Kelvin Kalua and Kingsley Sinclair, both of whom played a part here, but it does acknowledge just how much of an influence Ole’s lads are going to have. The starting XI read: Withers, Woolridge, Pijnaker, Payne, Wilkins, Just, Sinclair, Strong, Awad, De Jong, Duncan with Kalua, Garbett and Misik coming off the bench. You can also read that as: Ole, Ole, Ole, Easts, Ole, Ole, Easts, Easts, Ole, Easts, Easts with Easts, Ole and International coming off the bench. And even that’s deceptive because it’s not like Campbell Strong and Jack Duncan were doing much in the squad last season, high schoolers that they are (Strong did come off the bench in the semi).
However, you know how they say ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’? Because of how change is a constant and cyclical thing and time is a ceaseless force that perpetuates the gloriously tragic human condition? Yeah, that, well… no matter how much Suburbs have changed, evolved and adapted for the new campaign it was still Andre De Jong, their best player last season, who scored the first goal with a lovely chip over Mackenzie Waite and then set up the second for Kingsley Sinclair for a 2-0 HT lead.
Beautiful thing about this game is that it was played at Madills Farm, meaning an actual home game for the actual Eastern Suburbs club. It was also Paul Ifill’s 39th birthday (didn’t realise saints were still bound to our mortal calendars?). Ifill almost retired after a strong season with Tasman last time out but after moving closer to his Wairarapa home to be an assistant with HBU he figured, why the hell not, might as well keep going. He’s one of a few ex-HBU dudes to return to Brett Angell’s grasp – along with Sam Mason-Smith and Cory Chettleburgh, most notably. So you could say there was mass change here too but it was familiar change, if that makes sense.
And on another day perhaps HBU might’ve grabbed a goal back and this could have been a wild one. They definitely had their chances and there were stretches of this game where they were in the ascendency. Instead Mohamed Awad made it three just after an hour and then Sinclair scored another before Nando Pijnaker popped up to make it five. Pijnaker, by the way, one of the most exciting of the Ole lads on display this season. Eli Just is another. Wouldn’t sleep on Matt Garbett either.
It’s hard to know what context to put this result in given how different each team is from what we knew coming into the season and everyone has the odd bad day at the office… but this was a huge statement from Eastern Suburbs as they reinforce their playoff (perhaps even championship) credentials while Hawke’s Bay take a huge kick in the nads losing 5-0 despite looking a much stronger team on paper this time.
Canterbury United and Southern United is always a feisty one being a couple of local rivals and all. The Cantabs were the favourites here at home and coming off a semi-finals appearance a season ago, but Southern have become notoriously tough to beat. Probably to be expected then that there was only a single goal between them at English Park. (Which meant a clean sheet for new Dragons keeper Conor Tracey, good on him).
That goal was scored by Sean Liddicoat with a little over eight minutes remaining in the first half. It had proven tough to break down the two lines of four from Southern though the Dragons did have a few chances that they might have done better with. One to Maksym Kowal springs to mind. However they were also doing a great job of hogging the ball, making sure to play the game as far from their own goal as they could while still keeping good shape. George King played left back here and he was getting all the way up that wing and being a nuisance, just as Liddicoat was doing on the right – big selection call from Willy Gerdsen there because it meant dropping Aaron Spain to the bench after he’d played damn near every minute last season. But if we’re really singling out performers then James Pendrigh at the base of midfield deserves heaps of praise, with the control he offered, so really pleasing to see him play a big role in the goal.
And what a goal, too. The movement is excellent, committing defenders and splitting the lines, while the passing is crisp and Stephen Hoyle does some perfect hold-up strikering, dropping in to collect the ball then laying a gorgeous ball through on the spin for Liddicoat… whose finish is pretty bloody sweet as well. That little bit of slickness when it mattered and that was all that separated the two southernmost teams in the comp.
For Southern it’s a stink way to begin but this was a tough game. Their midfield spent a lot of time behind the ball which limited how much they could do against a team that didn’t allow much on the break. Still, the Southerners did look like they’ll be a dangerous team again from set pieces and there were signs of danger from their new frontline duo of Marcus Fjortoft and the always impressive Garbhan Coughlan. And keeper Liam Little was in fine form as he made a few top shelf saves in the last twenty or so to keep his team in the game (his post helped him too, guts to Cory Mitchell). There was nothing from this performance that suggested SU will be any less difficult to beat than they were a year ago – also shout out to Erik Panzer who had a decent game here on debut for his new club.
First thing that stood out from the Hamilton vs Waitakere game was that the Waitaks had cleverly snapped up Bill Robertson after he was cut loose by Hawke’s Bay. Billy Bobby ain’t getting any younger but he’s a leader of men and that’s the kind of thing that Waitakere need after such a terrible second half of last season. Speaking of terrible seasons, Hamilton Wanderers have finished in the bottom two in consecutive seasons, didn’t win a single game in all of 2017, and are looking to return their wooden spoon if they can find the receipt. They were better down the stretch of the previous term but still lacked a real killer instinct for turning promise into results. Losing can be a habit like that. Best way to avoid the rot is to not get stuck in a losing streak… which is easier said than done.
Second thing is that it’s pretty hard to report on a game when neither club bothers to do any sort of live updates, not even confirming starting lineups (which is the most annoying thing, honestly – but I’ve been prepping a thing about the league’s coverage for a little while so save that debate for another day). What I can tell ya is that these are not your 2017-18 Hamilton Wanderers. Ricki Herbert’s stocked up on better imports and a couple sharp local additions and yet, just like with Suburbs, it was a familiar face who did the damage. Tommy Semmy’s first goal… rumours suggest he beat upwards of fifteen Waitakere players before slotting the ball into the net… although I’m aware that may be an exaggeration. Regardless, another Premmy Files Superstar wasted no time in picking up where he left off.
In fact by half-time it was 3-0 to the Tron Wands, incredibly. All that demoralising toil last time and here they were 3-0 at half-time of the season opener. Semmy with a double and Martin Bueno adding one in between from the penalty spot. Based on the recounts of brave soldiers who were there, this was not a one-sided game. Waitakere threw plenty back at the home side, especially in the second half, and pulled a goal back through new signing Sanni Issa. But again, these are not your 2017-18 Hamilton Wanderers. They dug in for a 3-1 win. It took them 14 games to get a win last time. It took them 11 games to earn three points. This time they managed both in game tahi.
Finally we had a relatively routine and expected 3-1 win for Auckland City at Kiwitea Street against Tasman United, although that game was overshadowed by a nasty head clash between Tassie keeper Corey Wilson and City forward David Browne in the second half. Both players were down for an extended period of time and the game was delayed for 50 minutes as a couple ambulances were called for and the pair taken to hospital.
Browne had been excellent in the first game and he’d been excellent in this one. Set up the first goal in the 29th minute for Javier Lopez and then whipped one into the top corner after the break for his own celebrations. Lopez made it three in the 67th but almost instantly conceded through a Jordan Vale oggie to make it 3-1, pretty routine from an Auckland City team whose minor demise seems to have been much misjudged by yours truly – they’re scoring goals at will, the buggers.
Then the head clash happened and understandably the game didn’t see a whole lot more drama after that with the long break and shared concern for both players overshadowing the rest of the contest. So… on a brighter note… here’s a dog running onto the field:
It’d be nice to offer up some wisdom on Tasman but this wasn’t really for them. City already had a game under their belt and came in looking sharp, making two changes from the win over Team Welly with Brian Kaltack and Reid Drake coming in for Mario Bilen and Alfie Rogers. Same midfield and frontline doing the damage. As for Tassie, there were debuts for international players Kiernan Mason-Smith, Ahmad Othman, James McClay and Tom Hickey while the likes of Fox Slotemaker and Bertie Fish got games too… hell, we were talking about player turnover with some of these other clubs but Tasman had only one player – ONE PLAYER – starting this game who also started the last game of last season: the exciting Matt Tod-Smith. So a bit of a dud start but next week against Hamilton will be a much better indication of what’s up.
Ah and lastly we had the telly game: Wellington Phoenix against Team Wellington, curtain raiser for the A-League game. And you know it’s a curtain raiser because all three of the Nix’s telly games are coming directly before the A-League team which is really convenient, aye, with the cameras already there and everything… whatever.
The WeeNix have a really weakened squad and there wasn’t much confidence in the illustrious Premmy Files Previews that they’d be up to much. Then the senior side of the club came in handy. In the last week they signed Callan Elliot and Reuben Way for the seniors and left them to play in this one as well as NZ-eligible Aussies Gianni Stensness and Taci Kumsuz. Michal Kopczynski even got the nod to play for the WeeNix as he ups his recovery from injury. So they ended up with a rather decent team after all, evidenced by a bright start in which they took the lead twenty minutes in thanks to Calvin Harris – the Hong Kong Messi.
Harris had already gone close by then as well as Way hitting the bar after Waine had drawn a save outta Basalaj. Callan Elliot was looking sharp too while Harris… yeah he’s pretty good this lad. But fast forward to half-time and Team Welly were up 2-1. They’d made two changes from last week with Nate Hailemariam starting in place of Angus Kilkolly and Alex Palezevic’s centre-back excursion ended with the more appropriate Taylor Schrijvers there instead. The WeeNix often struggle defensively against the older folks and the Tee Dubs were always creating things. Eventually Hamish Watson and Mario Barcia linked up for Barcia to bring us level before Henry Cameron set up Andy Bevin.
Once Team Wellington scored it kinda felt like they had this thing in their grasp. When Watto won a penalty early in the second and stepped up to score it himself that was basically it. Kumsuz nearly scored an amazing goal to argue that point but eventually Cameron got himself a deserved goal after a quality performance and 4-1 was the way it ended, Team Welly getting the train right back on the tracks after last week.
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