Waitakere United were the surprise leaders of the comp after two rounds but having beaten Wellington Phoenix and Tasman United, the two bottom teams, there was definitely a bit of an asterisk on that one. This week they hosted Canterbury United at Seddon Fields in what shaped to be a much more realistic test of where they’re at, with the Waitaks mostly keeping the same folks that did the business in Tassie with the exception of Gerard Garriga-Gibert coming in for Jake Porter, while Canterbury Utd seemed to be unchanged from last week (though it’s hard to tell when neither team publicly named the Cantab XI) with the exception of Juan Chang-Urrea getting his first start of the season.

The funky matchup there was poised to be Canterbury’s import striker Calum Ferguson and how he’d fare against Waitakere’s young defence of Robert Tipelu and Flynn O’Brien but the action started off down the other end where Nic Zambrano hit the crossbar early on and Lachie McIsaac went close himself. Yet it was the Dragons who struck first when Sean Liddicoat flicked one on home with a bit of an overhead kick after a second effort at getting a corner into the mixer. That sparked things up for Canterbury who then had a nice old first half and were leading 1-0 at the break... although an injury to Liddicoat early in the second half was a bummer.

Which left the Waitaks in a curious position trailing by a goal at home against a team whose defence had been weakened and having already created but not taken a number of chances as they looked to add some more evidence to the file that reads WAITAKERE, LEGIT TEAM? and... oh there it is...

Yeah so a 1-1 draw was the way it ended after Alex Connor-McClean followed up his double last week with another goal this week and there was no splitting them. That’s one of each for the Cantabs, completing a traffic light of results from their first three games, while ACM’s late magic means Waitakere are able to remain undefeated ahead of the prospect of East vs West next week away to Suburbs. Very early days yet and the fixtures have still been favourable but can’t argue with what Paul Hobson’s achieved so far with Waitakere, the only drama was they weren’t able to put anything away earlier to make ACM’s goal a winner and not an equaliser. But the Cantabs will do that to ya, this is not a team that’s gonna concede too many... three goals scored and three goals conceded in three games, they’re turning into the team that Southern United used to be.

And Southern could use some of that old defensive steel back because they just got popped 4-2 at home by Eastern Suburbs. This was comfortably the best Suburbs have performed so far and it’s no coincidence that this happened in Stephen Hoyle’s first start of the season. He replaced Jake Mechell in the lineup while Joel Clissold also came in for Dylan De Jong and Campbell Strong came in at the base of the midfield for Adam Thomas. Three changes after their 3-0 loss to Hamilton Wanderers and three minutes into the second half they were 3-0 up, the first two coming in a three minute spree midway through that first stanza. Good things come in threes, after all.

Conditions weren’t kind, not even on that new turf down at Logan Park (sidenote: artificial turfs kinda suck, not sure if that’s a controversial one or not... but they’re also necessary sometimes, fair enough). The rain set in about an hour before kickoff and by the end of the game it was straight up bucketing. Reid Drake opened the scoring with a goal that got cut off the live stream thanks to the ol’ atmospheric conditions (Spark Sport could sympathise), Reidy finishing nicely after keeper Liam Little was trapped off his line, before Bueno doubled that lead with a trampoline header after a lovely cross from Mohamed Awad.

Suburbs might have most of a new squad now but they’ve recruited cleverly and goals should be the least of their worries with Marty Bueno and Stevie Hoyle getting at it. Sure enough Hoyle gave Southern the worst possible start they could have had to the second half as he netted the third for Suburbs. So much for Paul O’Reilly’s half time yarn then. Garbhan Coughlan netted from the spot to close the gap but Awad was next to score as he made it 4-1 with half an hour to play. Substitute Cody Brook had a lively cameo, scoring to get the hosts back within two and going close another couple of times, but the weather was torrential by this point and 4-2 was the final score. Incredibly this was Suburbs’ seventh consecutive win over Southern, and they put six past them in the corresponding fixture last season. Andre De Jong, Callum McCowatt, and Elijah Just all scored that day and all three got starts for the All Whites over the weekend so the more some things change, the more others stay the same.

Bit of a blow to Southern’s semi-final legitimacy already after losing back to back to Canterbury and Eastern Suburbs. Obviously there’s a very long way to go but conceding six goals in two games is not a lot of fun and losing to two of the top four incumbents ain’t helpful. They’ll need a response similar to what Suburbs had here because this was one hell of a way to bounce back from losing 3-0 to Hamilton for the defending champs. Another goal for Garbhan Coughlan though, he’s one of four players to have scored in all three rounds so far along with Myer Bevan, Hamish Watson, and Ollie Bassett.

Hamilton Wanderers started off by getting pumped 5-1 by Team Wellington. They followed that up with that lovely 3-0 win over Eastern Suburbs. But now that one’s been chased with a 5-0 defeat, at home, by Auckland City. ACFC were just too slick and too sharp, taking the lead through Logan Rogerson just short of half an hour in and they did what good teams do by capitalising on that and leading by three by the time the half-time oranges were served. Jack Portegys put one into his own net in the 37th minute and then Rogerson won a penalty right before the break which Myer Bevan stepped up to convert.

With a three goal lead already, Auckland City could afford to turn to the bench early by replacing Logan Rogerson who had been so impressive not only in this game but in all three matches so far. But the thing about Auckland City is when they replace Rogerson they can bring on someone like David Browne who is coming back from injury but was one of the very best players in the competition last term. Browne and also Angel Berlanga have been out with injury, though both are back at full fitness now – just gotta get that match fitness up again after missing chunks of preseason. Browne made his return off the bench last week while Berlanga was the second man off the bench here, coming in for Adam Mitchell in the 62nd minute. And then three minutes after that they’d used up all their subs as Clayton Lewis swapped in for Dylan Manickum. Yes, Clayton Lewis is now eligible after serving his amateur stand-down and ACFC just got even scarier.

In between all those subs Myer Bevan made it 4-0 as he buried his second of the afternoon. Which was also his sixth of the season and his 18th in his last eight games altogether including the Olympic qualifying tournament. The bloke scores goals, no questions asked. Speaking of playing up to reputations, David Browne then scored a wonderful solo goal with a few minutes to play and there was your fifth, people. Will Stephen came off the bench and picked up a red card for the Tron Wands just to rub in what a stink day it’d been for them.

Auckland City though, they’d been a little up and down in their first two games but here was a clinic from the Navy Blues, who have already scored 10 goals in three games. They were without Enaut Zubikarai once more for personal reasons which allowed Conor Tracey to keep a cheeky clean sheet in his second consecutive start while Berlanga, Browne, and Lewis are all knocking at that door to start. The favourites tag doesn’t guarantee anything but if you don’t think ACFC are wearing it right now then you’re thinking way too hard about this.

As for the Tron Wands, how have they been so insanely all over the show? Well it doesn’t help that they’ve already used 16 different starters. The front three of Tommy Semmy, Thilo Wlike, and Derek Tieku has been ever-present, same with Matt Oliver in goal, but the rest of them it’s been a bit of a wild rotation. Portegys was making his first start of the season here in a defence that is still scrambling for consistency. Brock Messenger wasn’t here having helped them keep a clean sheet against Suburbs last week. They’ve therefore conceded zero in the ninety minutes he played and ten in the 180 minutes he hasn’t. And perhaps most crucial of all is that they were without Jake Butler here who was a conspicuous absence having scored last week. But it’s also true that Team Welly and Auckland City are probably just a step above the rest of the competition and even if they aren’t it’s going to be a weird start to the season with so much change in squads and with coaches and all that, the Premmy probably won’t settle down into making much sense until after the holiday break.

It was only a few years ago that Hawke’s Bay United were regular semi-finalists but with the way they’ve tumbled out of contention the last couple seasons it’s easy to forget that. But under the throwback tutelage of Chris Greatholder and Bill Robertson it’s looking like The Bay might be rediscovering some of that old magic. It didn’t start that way, trailing 3-1 at half-time of their season opener against Auckland City, but since then they’ve been pretty excellent with the exception of a late flurry of Blake Driehuis goals last week (when they were already 4-0 up against the WeeNix).

This week they hosted Tasman United at Bluewater Stadium and it went about as you’d expect. Playing an unchanged XI for the third straight week – the only team to do so – they took an early lead through Ihaia Delaney being a good striker and following up and the same fella had another one a few minutes later but an offside flag curtailed those celebrations. Still, a very positive start and Ihaia Delaney is definitely amongst that young crew of players making their mark early in this new season. Delaney’s a 20 year old forward outta the Ole Academy and Central League champs Western Suburbs and is in his first year with HBU. He’s been on the U23s scene as well and has dropped straight into that lineup next to impressive import striker Ahinga Selemani, with both fellas already in the goals through three games. And of course last week’s hatty hero Dylan Sacramento in the number ten role.

It’s a big alteration from last season when Sam Mason-Smith basically did everything for them in attack, along with his aide Maxime Olivieri who was kinda inexplicably awarded the league MVP despite the fact that at least half a dozen others deserved it more than him. The big alterations have continued in trying to fix a broken defence, HBU going to a back three under Greatholder/Robertson, with Big Bill flanked by Fergus Neil and Kaeden Atkins. Karan Mandair and Gavin Hoy are in the wingback roles. Josh Signey and Sho Goto in midfield. It’s a team that, like most outside of ACFC and TW, might be tested by their depth if it comes to that but as a starting team they’ve impressed in large portions of all three games so far. There’s a lot to like here.

On the other hand, Tasman United are struggling. They created some useful chances through the likes of Jean-Philippe Saiko and Jama Boss but putting those chances away proved more difficult than it needed to and when Bill Robertson doubled the lead with a powerful header you could see the steam escaping from the game. Tasman have some quality in that front-line but things just haven’t clicked yet. They were held scoreless in each of their firs t two games and needing two goals to get back into it they didn’t look like they had the belief it could happen. Or maybe it was just that Hawke’s Bay, after how they gave their fans such a shock in almost blowing a 4-0 lead last week, locked it down at the back once they were two clear. A bit of both perhaps... and the second half wasn’t up to much especially not after Billy Scott was sent off with twenty left to play. HBU sub Josh Murphy got himself a red of his own with a couple mins remaining to level it out but Tasman, despite some incisive play, never really looked like scoring.

Which is pretty drastic. Every other team has scored at least three goals except for Tasman who have now been shut out for 270 minutes to start the term. Conceding eight in the process as well is a big worry for Jess Ibrom and his side. There have been some positives. Fox Slotemaker has once again looked imposing and controlled at the back, while young fella Jesse Randall was thrust into the action off the bench in the first half when Cory Vickers wasn’t able to recover from copping an elbow from Big Bill as he scored his goal and Randall seemed to offer something fresh on that right wing, able to take on defenders and make a few things happen. Randall’s just got back from the U17 World Cup. He’s young and he’s raw. He’s also extremely exciting and more Jesse Randall might be exactly what Tassie need because it ain’t getting any easier as they face Team Wellington (H) and Auckland City (A) in their next two games. Yikes.

And finally it’s Wel Classico. Team Wellington hosting Wellington Phoenix and with the A-League side on a bye week it was a more competitive game than usual between the two, the WeeNix able to boast more than half a starting team with professional contracts. Oli Sail played his first game of the season in goal, with Walter Scott at fullback for the second straight week (after playing two A-League games at left back while Libby Cacace was suspended). Liam McGing has started all three this season at CB, he was here again with Ronan Wynne while Sam Sutton and Cam Devlin returned after travelling to Melbourne with the first team. Ben Waine started up front. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi got a run out too. So no room for last week’s hatty hero Blake Driehuis who had to settle for a spot on the bench again... no Callan Elliot either. Meanwhile on the other side there was just one change from the team that drew with Auckland City with Aaron Spain making his starting club debut as Scott Midgley missed this one with injury.

Sometimes the term game of two halves is just a cliche. Sometimes it’s a plot description. This was the latter as Team Wellington had a dominant first half showing, going close a couple times through the creativity of Jack-Henry Sinclair and Ollie Bassett before those two combined to set Hamish Watson up for the opener. And having been the generous fella for that goal, Oliver Bassett was served one of his own to dine out on a few minutes later. Watson and Bassett in the goals yet again. Both those two have scored in each game so far and both those two have been absolutely superb aside from that end product too. Bassett’s signing is already looking like a TeeDubs masterstroke.

The WeeNix made two changes at the break with Driehuis and Ahmed Othman coming on for Adam Hewson and Cam Devlin. It seemed to do the trick too, because ten minutes later they were back in it as Ben Waine scored. Stevan Markovic picked up a yellow card in the afters for trying to stop the WeeNix from grabbing the ball for the quick kickoff. Not sure why anyone bothers with that but okay. Markovic is shaping up as one of the more entertaining characters this season. Oh hey and then ten minutes later Waine scored again because that’s what he does. He’s the youngest ever scorer for the Wellington Phoenix in the A-League and he scored bundles for the WeeNix last season and also for the New Zealand U20s and U23s. Wherever he goes, the goals follow. (He also left the field with cramp in the second half, crushing his chance at a famous hat-trick).

And this game of two halves being what it was, it was the WeeNix who had the better chances to win this thing in the latter stages. But Scott Basalaj was too good in goal and 2-2 was the final score. First points of the season for the WeeNix which lifts them off bottom and it goes a fair bit better than the ten losses they had to start last season. Obviously this was a stronger team than they usually have but only Sail, Hudson-Wihongi, and Waine hadn’t already played for the WeeNix this season and preeeetty sure they’ll each feature again for this team as the season progresses. None have started for the A-League team yet this season.

Frustrating for Team Welly to blow a 2-0 lead at the break... but they’re still undefeated this season and have already made the big statement of taking points off ACFC away from home. Nothing much to worry about for them having scored nine goals already and as per the quirk in the draw they get to face Tasman United next up. (That quirk being that the draw is basically just a cycle where everyone except Hamilton Wanderers (because someone had to be the odd team) plays each other in the same order – Waitakere played the WeeNix then Tasman, then Hawke’s Bay played the WeeNix then Tasman, next Team Welly does that and then it’s Auckland City’s turn... which is also why teams keep playing Team Welly and ACFC back to back... it was explained better in the draw reaction thing a few months back).

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