Celebrating The Season That Was For The Welly Nix In Case They Don’t Get The Chance To Resume It
The key word in the A-League’s postponement announcement was the word: POSTPONED. They’re gonna reassess things in a month’s time and, as the press release says, “the goal at this stage is to reschedule games as soon as it is reasonably possible to do so in order to complete the season”. That’s the plan, though when they’ll be able to do that is currently impossible to say. Funny now that the world’s longest offseason suddenly becomes a good thing.
There’s every chance that they won’t be able to get back into the usual flow of things in time to finish it. Hopefully they do but there are more important issues to worry about right now. If they do get to polish off the regular season and host a few playoff games down the line then the Wellington Phoenix are in a quality space. The last game before the postponement saw Newcastle Jets beat Melbourne City 2-1, with Glenn Moss subbed on with five minutes to go for his 250th and potentially final A-League appearance. An All Whites great of the modern era and quite possibly the Nix’s starting keeper if you were picking an all-time XI. He’d be my pick anyway. Love that for him... even if he was walking out to an empty stadium. Dude deserved a genuine send off, the big old round of applause, but perhaps he’ll still get that chance, you never know.
But that result did the Nix some good, it means they’re only four points behind City with three games in hand on them. The Nix are also five clear of Perth after an equal number of games and one clear of Brissy with two matches in hand. All those games in hand – the Nix have six more yet to play – will be rough to get through if/when they resume things but as it stands you’d have to say the Phoenix should be looking at that second place rather tastily.
If they don’t get to crack back into it and this is truly the end of the season, well, it’s been real. Third place on the ladder is already a record for the Wellington Phoenix. Two wins and a draw out of their last six games and they’d have bagged a record points total too. Without the playoffs this team can’t compete with the great Phoenix teams of the past, most notably the Paul Ifill-led crew that made the preliminary final way back in 2009-10, but they were/are every chance of matching that if they get the chance. And what they’ve done to this point is already enough to celebrate. So... let’s do that.
Point number one is Ufuk Talay. Nobody has done more than him in making this team what it has been. The new gaffer was a logical appointment from day one as a dude who looked like he could build upon whatever foundations that Mark Rudan didn’t take away with him (like panic buyers at the store stuffing the trolley with more than they need) whilst also fitting the club’s increased preference and belief in their ability to develop younger players. Talay had that experience with Aussie youth grade national teams and also the Aussie Institute of Sport plus he had that same A-League Assistant Desperate For A Top Job hungriness that Rudan had once upon a time... one year earlier. That they were mates going back a while helped a bit too.
Those things added up to a solid hiring yet what we couldn’t have suspected was just what a brilliant tactician he’s also proved to be. Mate, I mean, it seems like this gets a mention every time I write about this team but that’s because each week he seemed to make some little tactical tweak that improved his team’s chances. As a baseline the Nix used the same 4-2-2-2 shape that Sydney FC were so good with while Talay was assisting there, but sometimes a striker dropped into a ten role with two wingers, sometimes the two regular tens played central roaming roles, sometimes they were wingers, sometimes the strikers had different roles depending on the combos... it was all fluid. Meanwhile the back four and two mids offered the stability around which those attackers could mix it up. Especially with the fullbacks pushing forward to provide width and allow the tens to either overload the wings or drift inwards for the overload there.
Bloody lovely stuff, perfectly suiting the players that Talay had recruited (he did say beforehand that recruitment was by far the biggest factor and his signings have been mostly outstanding)... and contributing to a team that’s been amazingly enjoyable to watch. Uffie’s not the dude out there scoring the goals and whatnot but the rest of this wouldn’t have been possible without his leadership and influence.
Next up we throw some love the way of the imports. The theory with import players is that you want them to be a step above the rest of the pack. They should be your best players, better than your locals, otherwise what’s the point of signing an expensive import at all? Well, Ulises Davila is right up there in the hunt for the Johnny Warren Medal he’s been that good. I don’t think he’ll actually win it... but he’s gonna be on the shortlist. With Uli he was scoring goals from the start – including a club record equalling four games in a row with a goal back in Nov-Dec – and while the goals have slowed down since (but not dried up, he’s never gone more than four without a goal), he’s continued to supply the assists. So many big moments have involved the left foot of Ulises Davila. He’s a delight to watch.
Likewise David Ball and Gary Hooper. Ball took a little while to build his confidence up (remember his penalty gaffes on debut in the FFA Cup) but once he saw that first one hit the back of the net (in the seventh game of the season) he never looked back, leading the way from the front with his immense workrate and scoring some pretty valuable goals too, especially the winner in the game vs Melbourne City at Eden Park. Similarly Hooper took his time getting going because of his fitness issues. He was always one for a goal even bagging one early on starting debut... but then a little injury slowed him down and it was only around the halfway stage of things that he started starting on the regular. But three of his last four games he’s played ninety mins in, all four of them in winning efforts. Plus he and David Ball have really blossomed in that partnership together. At the point of their aborted Aussie quarantine, the Nix were playing as well as they had been all season, these two being the biggest positive evolution of them all.
Matti Steinmann slipped more under the radar as a holding midfielder and it wasn’t always easy to see how influential he was because the better he plays, the less he’s gonna be noticed. He’s a guy there to break up what the other team is doing and to facilitate for his own team early in possessions. Steiny’s started every game except two, missing a couple in a row over Jan-Feb through suspension and then illness. The Nix were kinda rubbish in both of them (scraping through with a win over Newcastle and getting well beaten in Perth). Then Steinmann returned to the line-up and suddenly he wasn’t so underrated.
There’s no underrating Steven Taylor though. The captain’s at the back there bossing things, launching himself into challenges and winning every header. Hasn’t missed a second all game. Absolutely beloved by the fans, as he should be.
Get your imports all humming like that and half your starting team is sorted. And this quintet have certainly been humming. Super Hooper is down on the minutes because of his initial fitness frailties but the other four imports are all up there with the most featured players, all contributing massively to a strong team... exactly what the script calls for.
Welly Nix Most Minutes in 2019-20:
Steven Taylor – 1800 mins | 20 starts (0 as sub)
Stefan Marinovic – 1800 | 20 (0)
Luke DeVere – 1786 | 20 (0)
Ulises Davila – 1776 | 20 (0)
Liberato Cacace – 1611 | 18 (0)
Matti Steinmann – 1573 | 18 (0)
David Ball – 1558 | 18 (1)
Tim Payne – 1344 | 15 (1)
Cameron Devlin – 1117 | 12 (4)
Jaushua Sotirio – 1116 | 12 (6)
Incredibly, only two of those ten players were at the club last season. So many new signings doing quality things, there’s that recruitment yarn again. Cammy Devlin’s been probably the loveliest surprise of this season as he’s emerged from being an attacking mid on the bench to a genuine hustler in the midfield who is now keeping Alex Rufer, the vice captain, out of the starting team. Such a busy player and so irrepressibly effective and yet he was signed as a fringe youngster out of the Sydney FC system... given a chance at the Nix and he’s grabbed it with both hands. Same as you can say, albeit to slightly lesser degrees, about Callum McCowatt, Reno Piscopo... even Ben Waine with his 11 appearances off the bench. Waine and Sam Sutton have been putting pressure on from the reserves team too. Sounds to me like a healthy culture of competition for places going on. Just look at how Tim Payne has made that right back role his own. Love it.
Then you chuck in a couple veterans in Big Stef Marinovic doing for the Phoenix what he does for the All Whites and making outstanding save after save and that’s been massive, while Luke DeVere has defied the fears about his injury history to start all twenty games, offering a level of dependability in that bermuda triangle next to Stevie T with Marinovic behind them. Attackers shall not pass through the triangle unharmed, beware.
Two different styles of dependability though. DeVere is solidity personified. Not the quickest but his positioning protects him from that, doesn’t make the miracle interventions that Taylor and Marinovic do but they’re already doing that so he’s doing what he needs to do. Marinovic is much more dramatic considering his distribution can be a mess at times... but the shot-stopping is as good as it gets in this league. Please, if somebody out there has too much time on their hands in the Welly Nix media team, gimme that fix with a supercut of Big Stef’s best saves. Nothing’s more relaxing than knowing you’ve got a goalie who’s got it covered. He’s literally saved points for this team. Also, remember that time he got an actual registered assist? Yeah boy!
There’s a recurring lesson here about what a beautifully well constructed squad this is. So many players that suit the way the team is trying (and succeeding) to play, with enough flexibility in the system to allow some give and take with that – like Hooper coming in as a proper number nine at the expense of the forward mobility that had been so important in the first half of things, and the team rising to a new level. Who amongst this crew could you say is having a bad season? Alex Rufer has dropped off since last time but only because he’s been injured and whilst injured he lost his starting spot. Maybe McCowatt and Piscopo could offer a few more goals, that’s fair. But following on from those first four defeats the Nix have only lost twice in 16 games, they tend to score enough goals as it is (a few more multi-goal victories would have been nice for the ol’ blood pressure at times, granted). If you were constructing a Team of the Season from the entire league you’d have genuine cases to make for Marinovic, Cacace, Davila... and perhaps even Taylor, Devlin, and Ball for inclusion in that sucker.
It’s also a team that, like hitting the save button on that essay you’ve been working on, is pleasantly backed up to do it again next season even if this one continues into write-off territory. Fourteen players are under contract for next time, including eight of the ten lads on that leading minutes list above. Only Luke DeVere and Matti Steinmann are on the loose from that ten-for.
Considering the mass rebuilds of the last two winters and the unprecedented regular season success that the Nix have had lately, you can’t even underestimate how huge that is. Chuck the gaffer on the list of those under contract for next time too. Uncertain times though these may be, the Nix are offering a rare element of stability with a team that has no reason to be any less competitive next season either, which is a pretty useful consolation to have if this current season never gets its big finale. Damn, the Welly Nix holding it down while everything else goes bonkers... we’re on the other side of the mirror now, friends.
Plus whack an ad whenever you read a goodie coz we need those dollars for new toilet rolls
Keep cool but care