Here we are then. Three more games left in the season with a trophy and a title and another spot in the Oceania Champions League still to be handed out. Auckland City booked the minor title by doing the business down the stretch – you may have heard about how they’ve gone 1007 minutes without conceding and all that – and with it the first OCL spot. The second goes to the winner of the grand final or, in the event that Auckland City sweeps this thing, it goes to Team Wellington as the runners up in league play, having escaped a scare against Hamilton Wanderers in their last game to hold off Canterbury United.

Auckland City will play Eastern Suburbs on Saturday afternoon at Kiwitea Street while Team Wellington hosts Canterbury United at David Farrington Park on Sunday. Both games kick off at 2pm and both games, thankfully, are live on the telly. But get down there if you’re able, goes without saying.

Auckland City vs Eastern Suburbs

Saturday 2pm at Kiwitea Street, Auckland

Auckland City Preferred XI: Zubikarai / Iwata, Bilen, Berlanga, Morgan / Riera, Howieson, Tavano / Tade, Lea’alafa, McCowatt

Eastern Suburbs Preferred XI: Caunter / Vale, Payne, Kalua, Prattley / van den Hoven, Built, Dyer, De Jong / Mata, Tieku

Suburbs were well and truly the dark horses of the established top four (we basically knew who the semi-finalists were gonna be a month ago) with Danny Hay’s infusion of extreme youth (Kalua, van den Hoven & Mata) and a few established vets/internationals (Payne, Prattley, Dyer & Tieku), not to mention Andre De Jong’s brilliance along the way. They began things by beating Team Wellington and, other than a sloppy period of four games without a win in the first half, were pretty impressive the whole way. When they unexpectedly lost to Hawke’s Bay they responded by smashing the Wellington Phoenix Reserves 7-1 the very next game.

With Auckland City and Canterbury United on the cards to close the season out, Suburbs had the chance to win both and finish top of the table. Instead they lost both and finished fourth. They were leading most of the way against Canterbury too until a couple late goals doomed them and a Moses Dyer red card made things even worse.

See, had Suburbs held on against the Dragons then they’d be playing Team Wellington in the semis and not Auckland City. They beat the Tee Dubs 3-1 away and then 2-1 at home whereas they were beaten 2-0 at home by ACFC and 1-0 away. They’ve never beaten Auckland City. Rather contrasting fates there and it kinda feels like they’ve already blown it, with the rest just the inevitable aftermath.

It ain’t only the bad draw that’s hurting them. They’ve also lost talismanic forward De Jong, who scored 11 goals in his 16 games as well as creating a fair few more along the way. Plus Moses Dyer is suspended having gotten that dumb red card last game and Tim Payne is with the All Whites in Spain. Payne missed two games during the regular season: the 2-0 loss to HBU and the 2-1 loss to Canterbury. Likewise they lost both the two games ADJ didn’t play at the end there.

They have a few alternatives to replace them with. Max Mata should probably start up top while Jordan Vale can have a run further forward if Hayden Johns starts at right/centre back. Kingsley Sinclair is another option in the midfield (he’s only 17 but that’s not too unusual in this ES team) and there are one of two others who might fill in at the back for Payne (Johns or Ryan Elder)… but nobody is gonna bring the same level of fierceness or structure as Payne does. Against Emiliano Tade that’s a dangerous prospect.

These two teams played a couple weeks ago and City won it 1-0 thanks to a Callum McCowatt goal. It was a game that City could and probably should have scored a couple more in but it was also notable for Danny Hay’s strict man-marking tactics against the City press. Not sure if any team in this league has the energy to keep that up over ninety minutes, Suburbs ditched it at the half, however they did threaten from set pieces a couple times in that first 45 with the junior giant Matty Palmer up front. Goes to show we might get something funky here from Suburbs, who aren’t about to wait and wonder what-ifs.

City know what the deal is, they’ve beaten this team twice and won’t have any fear about making it three outta three. Especially with eight straight Premiership clean sheets and a full-strength defence looking to make it nine. They’ve also made the final the last five seasons in a row and are playing at home. Odds = stacked in their favour.

They’ll be without Cam Howieson after he started every single game for them this season (including Club World Cup and Champions League) as he’s off with the national team and for sure they’ll miss his reliable presence in the middle – dude’s been magnificent, he’s as dependable as they come and well worth the call-up – but City have the depth to replace whoever the hell they need to. Expect the usual front three of McCowatt/Lea’alafa/Tade to wreak their traditional havoc. They have options at fullback but Takuya Iwata and Dan Morgan are probably most likely and goalie Enaut Zubikarai oughta have his mates Bilen and Berlanga in front of him. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi can literally play in all of those defensive positions (except goalie, of course) but is also a good bet to have a run in midfield without Howieson there. TAHW is finally back to his best after that injury a year or two ago and is beginning to look like he might have a legit career at centre-back on his hands (no doubt taking tips from The Godfather Ivan) but needs must and all that.

Gotta think that City are the heavy favourites and they should get the job done but there’s always hope and Suburbs might just get lucky and catch ACFC on a sloppy day. They protect the ball so well and give up so few chances against them that it’s gonna take something special to finally beat Super Zubi, though maybe Howieson’s absence will open up a couple more gaps in the midfield to work with. They were troubled slightly (ever so slightly) by Logan Rogerson’s pace last week so Derek Tieku and Max Mata had better be ready to run in behind those lines.

Plus City have been known to waste a few efforts along the way. Tade scores a million but sometimes has that tendency to try for the perfect goal rather than the simple one. No dramas to watch, keep on keeping on bro, but if City get wasteful in front of goal then they leave Suburbs in this contest. They might’ve gotten outplayed at Kiwitea two games back but they only lost 1-0 and at 1-0 all it takes is one moment of brilliance to bust it open.

Team Wellington vs Canterbury United

Sunday 2pm at David Farrington Park, Wellington

Team Wellington Preferred XI: Basalaj / Gulley, Hilliar, Kayara / Kilkolly, Barcia, Ilich, Molloy / Bevin, Allen, Sinclair

Canterbury United Preferred XI: Turipa / Spain, Schwarz, De Vries, Liddicoat / Ogilvie, Mitchell, Pendrigh / King, Hoyle, Nakamura

Funny thing is these two teams played each other the same week that Auckland City beat Eastern Suburbs. We didn’t get a winner then, instead it was a competitively matched 0-0 draw. That was down in the South Island and this is back in Wellington and Team Welly beat the Dragons 2-0 in the capital earlier in the season (goals to Kilkolly and Sinclair). Canterbury have changed since then. In fact that defeat to TW might have been a catalyst as they went on to win nine of their final twelve games with only one defeat (and it was against Auckland City). They were brilliant to close the campaign out, undefeated in their final seven with only that 0-0 draw spoiling a perfect closing.

So while one semi has a very obvious favourite and underdog, this one should pretty much be exactly aligned on the spirit level. Team Wellington has the recent playoff experience and home field advantage, that’s about all that splits them.

Team Wellington also closed unbeaten in their last seven. They might have lost twice to Eastern Suburbs along the way but they only suffered one other defeat and that was away to Waitakere (seems like such a long time ago…). Which means they were undefeated against Auckland City as well as Canterbury – beating both at home and drawing 0-0 with both away. Those two scoreless draws were their only clean sheets in the second half of the season but they also scored 21 goals in their final nine games which means an average of three per game outside of those 0-0s.

Ross Allen rocked up and proved worthy of the chatter with goals a-plenty. He’s been ill recently and missed the last two games but is all good now according to his Instagram so… there you go. Even if he’s out then Team Welly still have a lock-stock replacement in Hamish Watson.

Their preferred XI up there is flexible, Mario Ilich is more of a midfielder but could cover central defence just as Andy Bevin should play in the midfield but can do a solid job further forward. Jack-Henry Sinclair has experience as a wing-back and so does Roy Kayara while Angus Kilkolly has played there a couple times but is really a striker or a wide-forward. Same as Eric Molloy, a striker/winger who’s being used as a left wing-back. Shows that this team is stacked with good, versatile footy players.

Captain Justin Gulley will miss his first game as he’s been called up for the All Whites as cover for Storm Roux who is unavailable there for personal reasons. Maybe Ilich drops back or maybe Taylor Schrijvers or Liam Wood steps up into the starting XI. Probably think Schrijvers will be the bloke in order to keep that defence in shape, that way you’ve got both Ilich and Barcia (the two Marios) in the middle keeping things tight. Their wing-backs (assuming there’s no tactical switch-up, which is always on the cards) will get forward and create while Bevin and Allen always make things happen. Nate Hailemariam is a possibility to start as well. Roy Kayara hasn’t played since leaving the OCL stuff after a family bereavement so not sure on his status either.

Canterbury United have relied on the consistently impressive efforts of a few main players and so it’s notable that as their team lineups took more focus, their results got better and better. Hence Willy Gerdsen wasn’t taking any chances when he rested Steve Hoyle, Gary Ogilvie and Luke Tongue last week to avoid any pesky yellow card suspensions. George King already served his so he’ll be back as well although Sean Liddicoat has been under an injury cloud – if he doesn’t play then Andreas Wilson is a very handy replacement. Otherwise that back four picks itself. Francis De Vries has played a few in midfield but they’ve got no shortage of midfielders so it’d be a tactical ploy if that happens again.

Along the way they had to say farewell to James Pendrigh but he’s back now and played last week so all goods. Gary Ogilvie hadn’t missed a game until he took a rest last weekend and then you’ve got Luke Tongue and Cory Mitchell as well. Lots of options. The front three you can bank on: Futa Nakamura, George King and Stephen Hoyle. That trio has scored 17 goals between them this season and the Dragons have won nine and drawn one of the ten games that they’ve scored in. None against Team Wellington then, obviously.

The other thing is that Canterbury hit this one up on a high after their two late goals snatched a win against Eastern Suburbs on the weekend. They didn’t wanna play Auckland City either and now they don’t have to. Unless they both make the final. You can’t underestimate the value of confidence within a team, although you can also admit that Team Wellington are pretty confident themselves right now. Tough to make a prediction. The Dubs hold the slight edge yet this could easily go either way. Best just pack down and enjoy it then.

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