The Premmy Files – 2020-21 Men’s Premiership Team of the Season

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Little bit of a sad one here as this is the last Premmy Files piece we’ll ever publish. The Premiership is no more. The end of an era in Aotearoa football. As to what happens next season we’ll see how it goes, but in the meantime let’s wrap up a fantastic and entertaining season with a pretty bow on top with the annual Team of the Season piece. Going out with a bang.

This final Premiership season was different. For the first time each and every game was available to watch online and with that yours truly did indeed watch each and every game. 59 games of football culminating in a Team Wellington championship. Never has a TOS been more thoroughly researched... although of course there’s always an element of personal bias involved. One thing I’ve learned about this sportswriting business is that different people sometimes see entirely different things from the same game depending on what they’re looking for, what they want to see, how they perceive the game, what their own experiences have been, etc. So as always gotta put that traditional disclaimer in here not to take these teams too seriously. There were some very difficult exclusions involved and if you disagree then you’re right. But I’m right too. That’s how this stuff works – there are no objectively right/wrong answers.

All teams are picked in a loose 4-3-3 formation and I reserve the right to mix things up to get the best representation of players in there. Teams are ranked in First, Second & Third XI. Oh and also I was part of the quartet who selected the Premiership’s All-Time XI (big win for independent media right there, folks – support us on Patreon if you dig the reads) so check that out too if you’re interested in that sorta thing. Comparing across eras is a frivolous endeavour but they asked nicely so I did my best. Also check out some team debriefs here as well.

FIRST XI

GK – Danyon Drake (Eastern Suburbs)

Coming in hot with an upset selection. Alex Paulsen was the NZF league MVP but the league MVP is a silly award because of the way it’s decided with those 3-2-1 votes, prioritising the best player on bad teams – the last three years at least the MVP has come from a team that didn’t make the playoffs. So disregard that evidence, your honour. Thing is, Paulsen faded down the stretch as the WeeNix’s team form collapsed and it was over that last third of the campaign when DD properly overtook him. Drake’s a legit sweeper keeper. He had a couple shockers because of that – the 7-0 loss to Team Welly got ugly because of a couple first half giveaways – but a) that never caused his confidence to waver and b) for the most part his willingness to knock the ball around was a big part of Eastern Suburbs’ best stuff as he allows the centre-backs to get wider and the fullbacks to push forward. Plus obviously it goes without saying that Drake is excellent at the bread and butter goalkeeping too. Some outrageous saves throughout.

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RB – Taylor Schrijvers (Team Wellington)

Games played at right back = 0. But fullbacks in general just weren’t at a particularly high level this season, you had a lot of players being asked to do jobs out of position there and a few of the best ones were injured/suspended for a lot of the season. So I’ve made an executive decision to squeeze in Taylor Schrijvers to the top team rather than putting someone who maybe didn’t fit in terms of elite performances here just to keep the positional integrity going. Schrijvers was a master for Team Welly. You bring the rough and tumble stuff and he’ll go toe to toe. You try to press them and he can pass around the trouble. Sit back and he knows how to control a game from deep. It’s expert stuff, not to mention the last-ditch heroics he was capable of too. A fantastic season capped with a title at the end of it.

CB – Brian Kaltak (Auckland City)

The Vanuatu international turned up with a crown and staff this season. He was instantly the best defender in the comp and maintained that title the entire way. Not sure what changed between last season and this however consistent opportunities and a boost in confidence had to be a part of it. Brian Kaltak’s many skills all aligned for ACFC in the best way. He’s a tough tackler and a slick passer, capable of chipping in with a few goals and very few are going to challenge him in the air. The only disruption was a first half red card against Team Wellington in week four (no surprises one of their only three defeats came in the game he was suspended for). We’re talking about a Complete Package Defender here.

CB – Tino Contratti (Hamilton Wanderers)

HW’s Argentine centre-back is all action. If he were a Hollywood movie there’d be explosions and shootouts and romance and noise, so much noise. Contratti plays on the edge of risk, confident with the ball at his feet and confident with the ball at someone else’s feet too. He’s a superb tackler and he’ll willingly throw himself in the way of physical harm to prevent a goal. The way that Wanderers played did depend on players being able to do that kinda thing (Joe Harris and Brock Messenger fit in a similar category) and there were plenty of games where he might as well have been wearing a superman cape. The devastating thing for Contratti and his team was that he missed the semi-final with suspension and without him they just couldn’t withstand the Team Wellington strikeforce, conceding four times in defeat. If anything that only boosted Contratti’s case here. Only issue with him was that he had so many head-in-hands moments on attack where he nearly scored but not quite. He did get one goal: in the 1-1 draw vs Eastern Suburbs that clinched HW’s first ever finals appearance.

LB – Rory McKeown (Team Wellington)

There wasn’t an obvious candidate for Assist King this season yet Rory McKeown would have to be up there. His combination with Hamish Watson was like telepathy. McKeown swinging it in from the left wing and Watto putting it in the goal. Northern Irishman McKeown also played more than a couple times in the back three towards the end of things when there were injuries and that just happened to include a couple clean sheets and some of the team’s best form so don’t doubt the defensive capabilities either. But yeah that delivery into the penalty area is the not-so-secret weapon, so good.

CM – Cory Mitchell (Canterbury United)

They don’t come much more underrated than this dude, a legit defensive midfield wall for the Dragons. Easy to miss the guy carefully screening the backline with discipline and control but Aaron Clapham said one time on comms that Mitchell was one of the best teammates he ever had at CU so that counts for heaps. The amount of possession that this guy would win, honestly. Then dish it forward and let the attackers do what they will... it was Mitchell’s reliable presence that allowed them to pick as many forwards as they did in that formation. Don’t sleep on the CDM, mate.

CM – Sam Burfoot (Waitakere United)

Sam Burfoot’s a PF-TOS regular and he knows his way around a First team. The Waitakere midfielder has such an influence on his team, dishing the ball around and setting those defensive traps. He’s as classy an operator as it gets. Didn’t score a goal himself this term but y’all know he was a major factor in plenty of his teammates’ efforts. But as I say he’s a regular in these teams so explanations are unnecessary.

CM – Andy Bevin (Team Wellington)

It’s as if he can teleport, the way that Andy Bevin always seems to appear out of nowhere in any pocket of space that you happen to leave in your defensive third. And with a couple bruising strikers like Hamish Watson and Sam Mason-Smith you’d better believe there are plenty of those pockets. Bevin missed four games relatively early on and the TeeDubs drew three of them... doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise they were missing his incisive vision. Then he came back and was his usual remarkable self. Not sure we can still call him an underrated superstar of the domestic scene any more though - pretty sure most people realise exactly how great he is now. Seven goals this season for AB with a double in the grand final leading to Steve Sumner Medal honours. He should have had a hatty in one other game too, a 5-2 win over the WeeNix, but one goal randomly went down as an OG as a defender failed to hack the ball off the line.

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FW – Alex Greive (Waitakere United)

Not sure he ever played better than in week one where Greive scored one goal and set up at least one other in a 4-0 win over the Cantabs, thrilling with his eye for a line-breaking pass. Waitakere would fail to win any of their next eight matches but Greive remained a force to be reckoned with up front. He was a goal-scoring fiend at college in the States (he was overlooked at the MLS Draft mid-season) and that continued into the Premiership with six to his name for the Waitaks. Could have been a special season with a little more attacking depth around him to work with but still a clear First teamer.

FW – Hamish Watson (Team Wellington)

The real MVP. As written in the Team Welly team debrief, you knew from the start that Watto had evolved into his final form by that flowing mullet he was sporting. Clearly this was a man who no longer cared what anybody thought of him. He was ready to fully enjoy his football which freed him up to be an absolute bully and a pest as well as scoring bundles of goals. His hold-up play was superb. He was in great shape. His finishing was never in question but still heaps of highlights there for sure. Three separate hat-tricks including one in the semi-final, adding up to 15 goals from 15 games. Even when he was held scoreless in the final he remained hugely influential. Hamish Watson was the best player for the best team and the first name on this hypothetical teamsheet.

FW – Derek Tieku (Hamilton Wanderers)

Robbed of his share of the Golden Boot by a meaningless technicality (he played one game more than Hamish Watson – even though the GB is a quantity award, not an efficiency award, so might as well call it on boundary countback), although Hamish Watson did drop a massive exclamation mark on that with a hatty in the semi-final against Tieku. Take nothing away from what Tieks did for the Tron Wands though. He scored in each of their first three games including both goals in a 2-0 win over Auckland City. Then the team’s form stuttered as Tommy Semmy dealt with injuries and the attack became more predictable... yet Derek Tieku somehow continued to score goals to keep the team ticking. An equaliser against Team Welly. What should have been the winner against Canterbury (but for a stoppage time equaliser conceded). And most famously a hat-trick including the late, late winner in a 3-2 win over Hawke’s Bay. Great finisher, tireless worker, top notch leader, and above all a copious goal scorer.

SECOND XI

GK – Alex Paulsen (Wellington Phoenix)

Still waiting to see that end-season highlight reel pop up on YouTube but maybe it’s taking a while because he’s gotten Taika Waititi to direct it. Because that thing is gonna be prestige. Paulsen took over where Zac Jones left off as the WeeNix keeper and he quickly showed why he’s the best keeping prospect this country has with super save after super save. The shot stopping powers are crazy... plus he’s a young goalie who doesn’t shy away from the ball at his feet. Ultimately dropped out of the Firsts because the WeeNix just weren’t very good down the stretch and Paulsen’s influence suffered as a result (regular dodgy red cards in his defence sure didn’t help). But that’s the way it often goes for goalies, the more work you have to do the worse your team probably is - oddly the First team keeper had a 7-0 loss while the Second team keeper had an 8-0 loss this season. Strange times. Anyway, rest assured you’ll hear plenty more of Alex Paulsen in the coming years.

RB – Ahmed Othman (Hawke’s Bay United)

Strange season for the former Tasman/WeeNix forward. He started as a bench option, then worked his way in as an attacking midfielder, then by the midway point he was playing right wingback for HBU and doing a fine old job of it too. HBU were pretty reliant on pace in behind from Jesse Randall at first so after JR left they had to find new avenues to goals and one of the best of them was Othman’s emergence on the wing as someone who can get up and down the line, who can take on defenders, who can shoot, and who can cross. Three goals and the odd assist from deep for the lowest scoring team in the league, that’s golden. Othman scored in wins over the WeeNix and Hamilton so they were important strikes too.

CB – Adam Mitchell (Auckland City)

Best defender in the league last time but started this one off his previous standards for whatever reason. No need to worry because by the end of things he was back to his best, giving zero inches to opposition defenders as he and Brian Kaltak formed the most formidable CB pairing in the Premiership. There’s a very good reason why this dude’s been capped by the All Whites. And there’s a very good reason why fellow All White Sam Brotherton couldn’t get a look in after joining ACFC mid-campaign. Would have been a fair few other defenders jealous of him dropping Hamish Watson (at the expense of a well deserved yellow) at the end of the final too.

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CB – Christian Gray (Eastern Suburbs)

Came off the bench in the first game then started every other match. He was the one guy who really held things down at the back for Suburbs on the regular, faces coming in and out around him (his list of starting partners: Kelvin Kalua, Alec Solomons, Tyler Lissette, Jaiden van der Heijden, Josh Rogerson & Adam Thomas), as Gray blossomed from a solid secondary option to the main man. This was a breakout campaign for him. Reads the game nicely, facilitates for his teammates. Really impressed by the jump he made in 2021.

LB – Alfie Rogers (Auckland City)

The switch to a back four early in the season got the best out of the ACFC front three but it did kinda neuter their wide defenders. That is, with the exception of Alfie Rogers who started all but one game. Usually at left-back, one time at centre-back (which didn’t go so well but forget that one). He was tidy on the ball, always well positioned, immensely trustworthy, and probably quite helpful that he’s got a very good left boot on him too. Tom Doyle pretty much faded away by the midpoint of the season as Rogers had that LB role on lock.

CM – Mario Ilich (Auckland City)

This is where all the Auckland City dudes come in. Just one in the Firsts but we’ve got five in the Seconds. A team which took out yet another minor premiership and even if the grand final got away from them they were still massively impressive for the most part. Especially given some of the adjustments they had to make from the last few years. Mario Ilich needed no adjusting though, he’s one of the outstanding defensive midfielders in the comp. A magical passer of the football over range and a guy who is almost never out of position. Incredibly a Navy Blues team that bossed the regular season didn’t win any of the three games which Ilich missed. So there you go.

CM – Mario Barcia (Team Wellington)

Another of the outstanding defensive midfielders in the comp. Barcia always puts himself about: he was the most booked player this season and you know he earned those cards. Here’s a chap who strings things together in possession and breaks things up when out of possession... doesn’t get much handier than that. Doesn’t score a lot of goals but when he does score they tend to be golazos. Barcia had to work with a bit of uncertainty around him but by the time Ollie Whyte showed up for the last five games, well let’s just say there was no stopping that midfield combo. Five wins from five games, scoring 20 goals.

CM – Cam Howieson (Auckland City)

Only just missed out on the first team but I couldn’t keep Andy Bevin out of there in the end, such is life. Howieson is another regular in these Teams of the Season, a first-class creator out of midfield and someone who innately knows how to make the right pass. Plus thanks to his penalty taking duties he also popped up with four goals (three of them from the spot). You don’t really need me to explain Cam Howieson’s quality to you.

FW – Benjamin Old (Wellington Phoenix)

First there was Sarpreet Singh. Then there was Liberato Cacace. Then there was Ben Waine. Now there’s Ben Old. Whether he can get anywhere near the heights that the first two have already reached in their careers is impossible to predict, sure hope so, but what we’re talking about here is the championship belt holder for the Shining Light of the WeeNix. Ben Old flexed some killer dribbling last season but the talent was raw. Coming back this time he’d bulked up and that unleashed a whole new player. Able to hold off defenders and then turn the corner into instant attack. He scores and he assists. He pretty much ran the show for the WeeNix and it’s such a cool thing to see a young player as confident in their own abilities as that. You can tell how important he was to his team because when Ollie van Rijssel was accidentally sent off instead of Old in that Eastern Subs game... nobody said a word and OVR disappeared to the showers anyway (Old still served the suspension – one of two games he missed, the other being because of school exams).

FW – Garbhan Coughlan (Canterbury United)

This is one of those ‘you need to have watched the games’ ones because on the face of it this was not a standout Coughers season. Moving up from Southern to Canterbury, he only scored six goals all term and three of them came in the final game as they blew out the bottom-placed WeeNix. But Coughlan was about so much more than the goals for the Dragons. He was setting them up in equal measure, sometimes playing off the last defender and sometimes playing quite a bit deeper as a playmaking ten. He was the star man in a fluid, rotating attacking group. Surely the most fouled player of the term too. This guy was getting hacked basically any time he tried to hold the ball up.

FW – Logan Rogerson (Auckland City)

The speed. The sheer, untouchable speed. That’s what put Logan Rogerson over the top (and in behind) so often for ACFC, folks just couldn’t keep up with him. Then once he got through he always had the skill and trickery to be able to beat a defender and get a shot or a cross away. The only drama was his finishing which remains pretty wild... but when you create as many chances as that you can get away with it. Rogerson scored eight goals in 13 games playing from the wing and it was blindingly clear that they missed him in the grand final, that defence-stretching nature taken away from City. But by then of course he was already reaping his personal rewards having transferred to HJK in Finland – the Auckland City of that nation (where he’s playing alongside another ex-ACFC star: David Browne).

THIRD XI

GK – Nick Draper (Waitakere United)

Two standout keepers so who’d be the third pick? Cameron Brown was in consideration for Auckland City. Scott Basalaj was up there too until he lost his starting spot while out injured. In then end it’s Nick Draper who gets the nod, the English import for Waitakere who has set a dependably high standard for himself over the last few seasons. Not as many of the jaw-dropping moments as the top two keepers but arguably a higher baseline as he made so few mistakes. And he also saved two separate penalties. One off Kurtis Mogg, though he scored the rebound, and one off Derek Tieku. Mad respect for that.

RB – Jack-Henry Sinclair (Team Wellington)

Only played half the season because of that early shoulder injury but before that he’d already scored a last minute winner against the WeeNix and after that he eventually got back to the thrilling top form that saw him in MVP contention last season – a run of form that lined up with Team Welly going into hyperdrive over their last five games. JHS was brilliant in the final. Would have walked into the First XI with more games but so it goes. Still gotta have him in the Thirds.

CB – Bill Robertson (Hawke’s Bay United)

The veteran’s still got it. HBU continued their multi-year trend of conceding way too many goals but to watch them play and to see Bill Robertson, the co-coach of this team, hurling himself around in the box and organising the low block and winning loose balls... gotta wonder how ugly it might’ve been without him. There was a clean sheet win against Waitakere in which he was off the charts. He was amazing away to ACFC too... until they conceded a last-gasp winner. Story of their season in many ways.

CB – Tom Schwarz (Canterbury United)

Big fella at the back. Almost had Jaylen Rodwell here, tossing up with Kurtis Mogg as well, but nah gotta be realistic and think about how many goals that WeeNix team conceded (also Ben Mata would have topped him until he missed the playoffs with injury). The Dragons on the other hand were built upon a sturdy defence. Not a heap of clean sheets because nobody had a heap of clean sheets (there were zero 0-0 draws all season!) but after an awful start where the Cantabs conceded at least three goals in each of their first three games they only had two more games the entire rest of the way in which they conceded as many. Highlights were surely the 1-0 wins over Auckland City and Eastern Suburbs at home. Hard fought clean sheets in which Schwarz’s veteran leadership, physical strength, and surprisingly acrobatic shot-blocking were major factors.

LB – Kelvin Kalua (Eastern Suburbs)

At the start of the process Kalua was a chance to make the top team... until the research intensified and it turned out that Kalua only actually started eight of fifteen games (with another four subs apps). From memory there was at least one injury involved but in general KK didn’t seem to get the opportunities he was worth. Sometimes he played left back, sometimes on the right, sometimes in the middle. He was at his best at fullback though where his attacking abilities continue to grow. His equaliser against HBU in the last game of the regular season was the second biggest goal of Eastern Suburbs’ entire campaign... trailing only the winner that Reid Drake scored soon after.

CM – Brad Whitworth (Hamilton Wanderers)

Another undercover fella, sweeping the base of midfield for the Wanderers... which was no mean feat in a team which played quick and direct, seeking to create mismatches but often leaving themselves vulnerable in the process. Luckily you can get away with that when you’ve got a reliable defensive mid. Whitworth started every single game, delivering a feisty English presence throughout.

CM – Gerard Garriga Gibert (Waitakere United)

If only Waitakere had a trustworthy defence and one more goal-scoring striker. Because the rest of the team was stacked. Two first-teamers, a goalie getting recognition in these Thirds... and now Triple G himself. Bringing that Spanish passing flavour to the Waitaks by keeping that ball flowing and popping up with four crucial goals... particularly the stoppage time leveller at Kiwitea Street which almost put Waitakere into the semis. But then Eastern Suburbs won the rescheduled game and the rest was history. GGG was fantastic for them all the same.

CM – Reid Drake (Eastern Suburbs)

The puppetmaster of that Eastern Suburbs team. Not so much in the early days when he was able to work around the efforts of Adam Thurston, who was the frontrunner for MVP until he got injured after only five starts, and this selection might have been on the fringes even late in the regular season. Guys like Luis Toomey and Karan Mandair were definitely unlucky to miss out. But then Reid Drake pretty much willed his team out of that drastic drop in form, scoring in each of the last two games including the winner versus HBU that got Suburbs into the semis. A proper playmaker who can score or create and who stepped up big time when his team needed him most.

FW – Mohamed Awad (Auckland City)

Definitely one of those players who the Premmy Hipsters (if there’s such a thing) know to admire. Awad missed the very start of the campaign after a preseason concussion but the moment he cracked the starters was the moment when their season clicked into place. Awad is one of those guys whose inspired movement off the ball helps create for those around him much more than for himself, same deal with his clever passing vision (still chipped in with four goals but). Arguably their best player across the finals games as well.

FW – Sam Mason-Smith (Team Wellington)

There was a point early on in things when SMS had to take to twitter to point out that no he wasn’t injured he just wasn’t being picked. He’d probably be the first to say that his own poor form was the reason for that. Wasn’t really meshing with Hamish Watson. Too similar as players, perhaps. But then Joao Moreira was suspended and Mason-Smith took that reprieve to remind everybody how good he can be. Watto was the main man but Mason-Smith therefore got to feast in extra space thanks to Watson’s gravitational pull. The result was nine goals in the final eleven matches, a strike-rate to rival anybody. The peak of which being a hatty against Hamilton Wands which secured second place.

FW – Dylan Manickum (Auckland City)

DM has always had some silky skills, the futsal career attests to that, however not sure he’s ever had a Premiership season quite on this level before. Playing mostly through the middle in the absence of Emiliano Tade, Manickum was able to drop in and be an option as well as drift wide to support his wingers and it was probably his connecting efforts that allowed the Rogerson/Manickum/Awad trio to be as supreme as they were (13 combined goals in the 10 games they all started together). Manickum bagged seven goals for himself including scoring in both the semi and final. That’s how you do it. Also: First Team All-Hair for sure.

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Written by Nick Robinson On Tagged