The Premmy Files: Round 15 (and a Half)
We’ve now got a confirmed top four, with a bit of shuffling to do as to what order it all ends up in, which clears the path for Auckland City and Team Wellington to bugger off next week and play some OFC Champions League stuff. Only four games this week, which was technically a part two for last week’s four games in Round 15. Even though Round 16 only has three games spread out over two weeks. There’s more than a month until the semi-finals even though ACFC and TW only have two more league games to play. Hey Declan, what do you reckon?
So, Auckland City opened up the round away to Tasman United at Saxton Field in Nelson on Saturday arvo. Tassie still had an outside chance of making the playoffs if they could win there but realistically they were already playing for fifth and that’s now officially the case. Callum McCowatt scored the only goal late in the first half as ACFC battled to a 1-0 victory. They struggled with Tasman last time they played, going behind 1-0 before storming back in the second half for a 3-1 win that was later overturned for having played an ineligible player. They had another tricky time against them down in Sunny Nelson (trademark) but with their defence what it is these days, there was no stopping them.
Callum McCowatt’s started every game this season, sixteen of them, and after five games without a goal he’s now bagged one in consecutive games. Gotta love seeing a young kiwi bloke thrive like that. As for that defence, count it: six straight clean sheets. They haven’t conceded a goal since they drew 1-1 with Southern on January 13. Since then it’s been a complete lockout. They’ve played each of the other top four sides in that time too, hardly flat-track bullying.
What’s more is that they’ve been rotating their backline the whole way through. On this occasion it was Angel Berlanga coming back in after missing just his second game of the season last week along with Dan Morgan replacing Takuya Iwata. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi has played at centre-back and as a fullback. Alfie Rogers has started three of the last four. Harry Edge has played at CB. Mario Bilen was on the bench here but started the previous five. Shows both the value of a deep squad and also a quality team with a consistent vision. The one consistent there, of course, has been goalie Enaut Zubikarai. Ten clean sheets this season and counting.
Guts to the Nelsonites. This was Tasman’s last home game for the campaign and they played pretty well but without really being able to threaten the City goal. With work going on at Trafalgar Park, TU has had to shuffle their home games between there and Saxton and it’s not always been pretty. For a team that looks a good bet to finish fifth, they’ve largely been crap at home. One win from nine home games with four draws and three defeats (including 0-6 vs Canty and 1-4 vs TeeDubs). 14 goals scored (nine of which came in two games – 4-4 vs Hamilton and 5-2 vs Hawke’s Bay) and 23 goals conceded.
Meanwhile they’ve won four away games, including the default win, with only two defeats (Team Wellington and Eastern Suburbs) and they’ve got games against Wellington Phoenix and Waitakere to close. Still got hope, folks. Gotta close this out nicely and maybe get Paul Ifill that Golden Boot. Hey, another week in which Emiliano Tade didn’t score.
Team Wellington then did the business by taking care of Waitakere United. The slump for the Waitaks only gets worse, that’s now four straight defeats and seven games without a win since they beat Hamilton Wanderers 4-2 on December 10. That’s a long time ago now. By the way, there was no Stuart Mackay here after his combustive blow-up with manager Chris Milicich last week. Lesson to be learned there, kids. The gaffer usually gets the last word.
Welly tore it open early as Jack-Henry Sinclair scored an early penalty and then Andy Bevin made it 2-0 within ten minutes. Team Welly continue to keep the pressure on Auckland City and they seemed to be enjoying being back at home after covering the distance of Aotearoa over their last three away games. But Yuki Ohtsuka pulled one back after half an hour and this might have been a very different game had Keegan Linderboom converted from the spot in the 44th minute. Nope, Scotty Basalaj made a ripper of a stop and Ross Allen made it 3-1 soon after the second half resumption before Andy Bevin got his second to clinch it.
Cool to see Bevin getting in the goals, he’s been one of the standout midfielders in the comp this season but nobody notices the midfielders when only one game a week is televised in any way. NZ Football’s player of the week award basically just goes to the guy who scored the most/most important goals that week.
With Eastern Suburbs a third of the way through a three-week break (they last played on Feb 11, they next play on March 4), that gave the top of the table a two-toned complexion. Canterbury United are keeping up the pace thoughThey scrapped to a 1-0 win on the telly game thanks to a second half thumper from George King. They’re an exciting team, Canterbury. Four wins in a row and very much worthy of challenging the other three teams in the top four. With Hawke’s Bay next week they should make it five wins and then they close with a home game against Team Wellington and then away to Eastern Suburbs – both of which will have enormous implications on the semi-final draw.
For the last few weeks the Dragons have settled on a strong but youthful back four of Aaron Spain and Sean Liddicoat out wide with Francis de Vries and Tom Schwarz in the middle. Schwarz is 28 but the other three are all 23 or younger while 25yo Coey Turipa has been a fixture between the posts as well. Left-back Liddicoat’s been keeping local hero Andreas Wilson out of the team. Back at the start of the season it was Wilson who represented them at the season’s launch yet now he’s mostly only a bench option. Plus between Cory Mitchell, Luke Tongue and the always impressive Gary Ogilvie in the midfield it doesn’t even seem to matter that they’ve lost James Pendrigh and Aaron Clapham along the way. They’re a team to be reckoned with… although they have lost three from three against Team Wellington and Auckland City.
Another solid showing from Hamilton Wanderers… but their two week run without a defeat (one win and one bye) came to a fairly tame end. They were competitive and well-organised but they didn’t have anything in them to make Turipa and his defence sweat. Unless Tommy Semmy did something wild and wonderful then it simply wasn’t happening. Still, shout outs to Joe Nottage and Sam O’Regan, the HW centre-backs who have only conceded once in each of their last three games. When they’ve been at full strength at the back (bit of a focus on defences this week, apparently) with Xavier Pratt and Jordan Shaw at fullback to go with those CBs, the Tron Wands have won once, drawn twice and lost six times while conceding 21 times at an average of 2.33 per game. Still terrible but when those five are split up it’s one draw and five defeats with 21 goals leaked in six games at 3.5 per contest. So there you go, context.
The Wellington Phoenix Reserves are going in the other direction. Having been very competitive in the middle of the season they’ve turned to trash in recent times. Because it needs to be said every week, this team has suffered heaps by the first team trimming their useless depth players as well as allowing a few of their better youngsters to bolt for pastures elsewhere. Luke Tongue’s settling in nicely for Canterbury. You can expect Liam Wood and Hamish Watson to get some games for Team Wellington in the OFC stuff soon. Meanwhile the Welly Nix II just can’t replace those guys. Which is why they got thrashed 4-0 by Southern.
In the last three games they’ve conceded 16 goals. That’s all sorts of awful. But they’re also not really trying to get results at this point, they’re just looking for experience for their players. Which, on this occasion, included A-League fringers Logan Rogerson, Keegan Smith and Adam Parkhouse. That’s probably not the best for the league in general and here they caught a Southern team looking to make the most of a relatively generous last few games. Following back to back defeats to Team Wellington and Canterbury they got this one and will play Hamilton and Hawke’s Bay to close. Two games to consolidate their sudden sixth place on the ladder or potentially even overhaul Tasman who are only two points ahead with a tougher remaining schedule. Who saw that coming from Southern after last season’s struggles?
Alex Risdale and Danny Ledwith scored in the first half, Nick Treadwell and Andrew Ridden scored in the second half. 4-0 to Southern, who hadn’t scored four in a game all season. Who hadn’t even scored three in a game since repeating this score-line against Hamilton Wanderers on 8 January 2017. No goals for Garbhan Coughlan but Paul O’Reilly did make sure to point out that he set up two or three of the goals in a strong performance. Southern’s defence has only been blown out a couple times, they’re usually great at sticking around. This was only their third clean sheet though.
Not bad for the same week that striker Danny Furlong departed for Galway United in the League of Ireland, signing a two-year professional contract. 12 goals in 22 games for that lad, including several heroic late ones this season. But nah, then they bagged four the game after he left. Hey and credit to teammate Nick Treadwell also, whose goal here made him the 100th bloke to hit the net this Premiership season (excluding the poor buggers with own goals, naturally).
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