The Premmy Files – WeeNix Season Review
Thus we come to the end of our team by team reviews, meaning the big reveal of the team of the season is just around the corner. The Wellington Phoenix are a unique case in the Premiership, an U20s team that competes with the old fellas, a reserve team competing against the best franchise clubs in the country in the national league. They’re not even allowed to play in the playoffs if they make it and can only have two players over the age of 21 in any matchday squad (as well as a max of five outfield pros). Their performances are viewed through a different lens as these players aren’t competing for a championship, they’re competing to follow in the footsteps of Sarpreet Singh and Libby Cacace and those folks into the A-League set-up.
Having said that, the WeeNix still had a pretty useful campaign in terms of results. After losing to Waitakere United in the opener they almost pulled off a miracle comeback against Hawke’s Bay. Down 4-0 with three minutes plus injury time remaining, substitute Blake Driehuis scored a five minute hat-trick to pull them back to 4-3 but they ran out of time for a leveller. Nonetheless a nicely stacked team with a handful of fill pros were able to get a massive point against Team Wellington the following week. 2-2 with both goals scored by Ben Waine, recovering from a two goal deficit at the half. Their first win of the campaign came two weeks later when they beat Hamilton 4-2 thanks in part to a double from Ahmed Othman and they chased that one with four straight draws. This was a WeeNix team that was pretty well organised at the back. Still capable of making silly inexperienced mistakes that cost them goals but more than anything they had firepower up front, only kept scoreless twice all season (a 1-0 loss to Team Welly and a 3-0 loss vs Auckland City – nothing to be ashamed of there either time).
Unfortunately they blew a couple of those draws. though They conceded deeeeeep into stoppage time to draw with the Cantabs and it was an 85th minute leveller that cost them against Southern. Then the next week after Byron Heath scored in the 92nd minute to make it 3-3 against Waitakere... Alex-Connor McClean responded in the 96th minute to cap a 4-3 Waitaks win. Their season ended with Luke Tongue scoring right at the end for Canterbury in a 1-1 draw there too. Plus a late, late, late penalty that cost them against Team Wellington the second time.
This is all in the context of a young team that is going to make mistakes. It’s part of the learning process. But that’s a lot of late goals that cost them a lot of points. Even still they managed to bag four wins along the way, including back to back against Hamilton (they did the double over HW) and Tasman before the second Cantabs game, but just a little more concentration late in games and they could have won those other three games and drawn the Waitakere and TW ones... nine more points and we’re talking tied-third on the table. Not that they’re eligible for the semis but still. Imagine that.
It’s tricky to pick the selection trends for a team that tends by nature to be all over the place with guys coming in and out. As far as the main academy lads go, Zac Jones was a returnee in goal. He’s definitely grown with last season in the bank, looking much more dependable with the gloves there which is lovely to see. Also got Alex Paulsen from the last U17 World Cup squad pushing through too. No gametime for him this season but he was on the bench heaps and is a massive prospect.
Stepping into defence and you’ve got two top notch candidates there: Ronan Wynne and Kurtis Mogg. Both were regulars the last couple seasons and, same deal with Jones, that kinda experience was huge for this team to be as competitive as they were. Wynne and Mogg played best at CB, Wynne with a bit more of a silkier edge while Mogg is a hard-tackling dude with great size for his age and heaps of leadership ability. The pair can both play fullback too, Mogg getting decent time at left back when the pros were in town. Mogg started 11 games and came off the bench once while Wynne started every single match, the only WeeNixer to do so. Wynne’s the younger brother of All Whites fullback Deklan and is off to the Uni of Denver next year which is just down the road from where Dekkers plays for Colorado Rapids.
In midfield there were good minutes for the likes of Noah Tipene-Clegg, Luis Toomey (signed from HBU), and, towards the end, Henry Hamilton. This is arguably the toughest position in which for WeeNix players to hold their ow. Centre mid is the most dynamic role on the park and in fairness it was probably where they fell short in a lot of games... but that’s also to be expected and it had nothing to do with effort. As NTC and Hamilton in particular got more opportunities to work on their combination as the season progressed they got better and better. Keep in mind that the best midfielder in the team, Sam Sutton, only started seven games and only once did he play consecutively. He was too busy busting through into the senior squad, making his A-League debut a few days before Christmas... having just turned 18 less than two weeks earlier. Sutts scored two goals along the way and was great in his limited opportunities... but that’s another thing the WeeNix have to deal with. The better their best players play, the less likely they are to be available.
Pushing into the attacking third they got great contributions from Ahmed Othman after he signed from Tasman United for this term. Othman was always a tricky one to contain with his pace and he scored six times along the way, setting up a few more too. Riley Bidois and Byron Heath split a lot of striker duties and each had their moments (although Heath’s campaign ended prematurely with injury) while Riley Bidois had that hatty vs HBU to brag about. Didn’t see any of Oskar Van Hattum though, he’s meant to be one to watch out for.
But the main man up front was Benjamin Waine. Still on an academy contract for this one last season before he officially turns pro and goddamn does he deserve it. Again, like Sutts, Ben Waine wasn’t always available as he hung about training full time with the top side and featuring 11 times off the bench in the A-League – including becoming the Welly Nix’s youngest ever goal scorer. Which means he only got to play five games for the WeeNix. Five games in which he scored seven times all up, a goal every 65 mins according to the club’s twitter. Those four games were against Team Wellington (A), Eastern Suburbs (A), Team Wellington (H), Auckland City (A) and Tasman (H) so it ain’t like he was doing it against chumps either, those are the new champs, the defending champs, and the other Champions League qualifiers... plus Tasman. We’ve already covered what Tasman were up to on the road so that was the only favourable matchup for Waino... and he scored a hat-trick on the way to a 3-1 win. Also, he did this against Auckland City which is surely up there in the goal of the season stakes...
The WeeNix are also a happy hunting ground for some of the fringe professionals at the club, particularly the younger lads, to get some match fitness under their belts. Quite a few of them featured at various stages, 11 of them in fact combining for 42 starts and that’s not counting Sutton and Waine. But it is including two imports.
Oli Sail played six games in goal and only conceded 1.5 goals per game as well as keeping their only clean sheet. Strange place for the Sailer to be in given he’s clearly not as good as the All Whites number one keeper that’s keeping him on the bench for the top side but he’s also too good for this level. Will be interesting to see how long he hangs around before he tests the waters elsewhere. He’s a goalie so time is on his side.
Liam McGing was the most common senior dude. One appearance off the bench for the senior side comprising of two minutes... but 11 starts for the ressies in their backline. The Aussie defender came over from Sydney FC with Ufuk Talay and is one for the future rather than the present, it doesn’t help him that Steven Taylor and Luke DeVere haven’t missed a game between them for the A-League side. McGing’s tall and composed, always good attributes for a defender. He had some very good games in there. Then after McG it was Callan Elliot who hasn’t actually played for the top side this season and has only been on the bench three times so he’s had plenty of chances to kit up for the ressies. Ten games, all starts, playing either as a winger role or increasingly as the season went on as a fullback which is where his window for the first team seems to be.
After that trio we’re getting more into sparse cameo territory, like Cam Devlin. Before he was one of the breakthrough players of the A-League as a tenacious central midfielder he started two of the first three games of the Premmy season for the WeeNix, including the 2-2 draw with Team Welly. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi hasn’t had the same room to establish himself at the A-League level but he got four WeeNix games all in the first half of things to keep the cobwebs away. TAHW is a couple years older than McGing, Elliot, Waine, or Devlin so he was more restricted in how often he could play. And Walter Scott also played four games at fullback before injury meant he required an extended spell on the sidelines.
The 2-2 draw with Eastern Suburbs was the most fun of all the pro sightings. Oli Sail started in goal with McGing and TAHW in the defence. Sam Sutton also played while amongst the attackers were Ben Waine, Callum McCowatt and... Gary Hooper. Five pros plus two who’d played pro. The other four battlers were Othman, Wynne, Mogg, and Tipene-Clegg in case you were wondering. Gary Hooper only played half a game but half a game was all he needed to add to his extremely long list of competitions scored in. Ben Waine also scored and they were 2-0 up at the break... but faded in the second half, as per, to draw 2-2.
There was also a game they lost 1-0 to Team Welly in which their lineup went: Sail, Wynne, Steinmann, McGing, Elliot, Rufer, Sutton, Wilson, Old, Bidois, Waine. That’s a maximum five outfield pros plus a pro keeper and the Sutts/Waino duo as well. Alex Rufer was working his way back from injury at the time hence he showed up as a blast from the past while Matti Steinmann had been suspended the week before for the top side, who were on a bye week (Steiny would miss the next game with illness) and Brandon Wilson was still short on match fitness despite having started in Steinmann’s absence the week before at A-League level. Rufer and Steinmann were replaced in a double sub on the hour. Team Welly’s winner was scored in the 96th minute, naturally. From the penalty spot. Oh yeah and Brandon Wilson also had the infamous moment on WeeNix debut a few weeks earlier vs Southern where he was booked for two separate fouls in the same move and thus sent off.
Rightio but there’s a group of players we still haven’t touched upon yet, the next wave of WeeNix folks. The ones who’ll pick up where the older fellas leave off as they graduate to further opportunities all around the world. The one who caught the eye the most was Ben Old. He’s a slight fella at 17 years of age (that’s him in the header pic) but he’s quick and skilful and as the season went on he went from playing a few times off the bench to starting seven of their final eight games. Also getting a few starts along the way were defenders Kris Naicker and Harry Bark. Bark in particular looks like a real prospect at fullback. Both were part of the U17 World Cup squad which featured 10 Phoenix Academy players... also including Old and Hamilton. Henry Hamilton played six games in the midfield this season, becoming first choice towards the end, and will probably be a big part of things next time. Also playing Premiership footy for the WeeNix from that U17 WC crew: Adam Hillis and Max Drake.
How many of these dudes will progress to play first team for the Wellington Phoenix? Only a couple. Ben Waine and Sam Sutton are right there already so they don’t count, beyond that it’s too hard to say yet. But that’s not the only reason the WeeNix exists. There’s great pride taken at the Wellington Phoenix in how many overseas pros and USA college grads they’ve produced and so there should be. This is a reserve team for Aotearoa’s only professional football club and they have that element to them for sure, yet most of the players who come through their academy doors aren’t going to rise to those levels and that’s cool too, the Phoenix Academy is producing professional players out of New Zealand at a rate that only Ole Academy doesn’t have to bow to... even throughout the Premiership there’s evidence of their work in the likes of Jack-Henry Sinclair, Logan Rogerson, Luke Tongue, Joel Stevens, Ollie Whyte, Sam Wilson, Ben Stroud, Tom Doyle, and plenty more. Can’t argue with that track record.
Other 2019-20 Premiership Team Reviews:
Auckland City
Team Wellington & Eastern Suburbs
Waitakere United, Hamilton Wanderers & Hawke’s Bay United
Tasman United, Canterbury United & Southern United
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