Welly Nix: Reasons For Optimism (Despite Missing The Finals)
After two straight seasons with finals appearances, and two straight seasons with disappointing exits from said finals appearances, the target was pretty clear for the Wellington Phoenix this time around: make the finals again and actually win a game. That target did not get achieved. The Nix’s 2-2 draw with Perth Glory at Eden Park took matters out of their own hands and results elsewhere went awry. A largely excellent performance in the season closer against Macarthur – a finals team – showed exactly what they might have been able to do had destinies been more considerate but it wasn’t to be.
And yet strangely, despite missing out on the number one objective of the whole campaign, things don’t feel so glum. Probably because the Phoenix finished as one of the form teams in the competition with an 11-game unbeaten streak. Probably because the enormous crowds they got in their only two home games (one in Wellington, one in Auckland) can only bode well for the club once they’re back to playing regularly in Aotearoa. Probably because despite the fact that they only had two home games this term they only missed out by one mere point. Probably because they’ve got a manager and a starting eleven all signed up for next time already which is a milestone they don’t usually hit until about two weeks into preseason.
Some of that is a bit convenient. If the season had been the other way around where the Nix went 11 games unbeaten at the beginning and then closed out with one win from their last eight then we definitely wouldn’t have been hanging any hats on that. Even though the results would have been exactly the same except in a different order. And the slates are wiped clean at the start of next season, it’s not like they get to keep anything tangible from that 11-game unbeaten streak. Confidence maybe, and possibly a cheeky entry in the record books, but it’ll still be a new season with new players. And the Nix have had a habit of poor starts: the last three campaigns they’ve started with 5 points from 8 games (2020-21), 1 points from 5 games (2019-20), and 5 points from 6 games (2018-19). Those games are worth the same amount of points as the ones at the end of the season. There’s no getting them back.
But maybe next time will be different because those other reasons for offseason optimism are not so easily tossed aside. Ufuk Talay’s two-year extension is immeasurably important. He’ll be coming in for his third year with the club fully committed and locked in and throughout his tenure so far Uffie has shown a genuinely impressive ability both to identify talented players and then also to get the best out of the players he has (which, yeah, s’pose those things are connected).
Sam Sutton, a midfielder, playing the way he did at left back towards the end of things is just one example of that. Oli Sail is another as he didn’t play a single minute in Uffie’s first season... now he’s the clear number one going into the third swing after an amazing run of performances keeping Stefan Marinovic on the outside looking in (to the extend that Sail was re-signed while Marinovic is instead leaving for Israel). Plenty more examples where they came from too.
The one main problem there is that it wasn’t an instant thing with any of them. This season especially it took way too long for the Nix to get going, way too long to figure out the best combinations within the squad (injuries not helping there). A quick peek at the Phoenix’s top dudes by minutes played tells quite a yarn...
Tim Payne - 2302
Clayton Lewis - 2061
David Ball - 2048
Ulises Davila - 1869
Oliver Sail - 1800
Louis Fenton - 1694
Cameron Devlin - 1624
James McGarry - 1427
Alex Rufer - 1363
Tomer Hemed - 1344
Ben Waine – 1203
Oli Sail and Louis Fenton started the season on the bench. James McGarry and Alex Rufer finished the season on the bench. Tim Payne and Clayton Lewis – who were both playing NZ Premiership stuff two years ago, chalk another couple wins up for the standard of local club ballers in Aotearoa – had significant positional changes along the way. Tomer Hemed and Cameron Devlin had their share of cheeky injury troubles along the way. Guys like Reno Piscopo and Jaushua Sotirio don’t even crack that eleven because of all the knocks they took. Steven Taylor only made 10 starts.
Injuries, poor form, suspensions, difficult schedules, late transfers, etc. Heaps of reasons for all that but the bottom line was that the Phoenix suffered because of the chopping and changing and points were dropped along the way as a result. One more point was all they needed to make the finals. Two more points and they’d have finished fourth. Compare this season where three players logged 2000+ minutes to last season where seven players passed that milestone (in one additional game, but nobody this time was within 90-120 minutes of joining the crew so that doesn’t matter).
But there are benefits from having to trudge through the mud like that. Ben Waine would never have gotten the chances he got without those troubles, and look where he is now. Started nine of the 11 game unbeaten streak and signed a new contract. Lewis and Payne thrived being asked to play in different spots. Ben Old made a debut too. Add him to Sutton and Waine and you’ve got 2049 minutes played by teenaged academy graduates. Always an exciting thing to see the pathways open like that – particularly for a club that has propelled Sarpreet Singh and Liberato Cacace into the great wide open in recent times.
There’s plenty of work to do in building out that squad – especially scouting some more creative attacking imports – but as a spine they’re in a decent place with Oli Sail in goal, Tim Payne and Steven Taylor in central defence, and Clayton Lewis and Alex Rufer in midfield. They won’t be trying to figure those things out on the fly again.
We also cannot understate the impact of Steven Taylor. It’s been mentioned a few times in these Welly Nix pieces lately, but buckle up now because it’s going to be mentioned again. He played 12 games. 10 starts, 2 late sub appearances. Before he returned the Nix had all sorts of wobbles at the back trying to find a steady combination, conceding silly goals from preventable errors, lacking that leadership that Steven Taylor had offered the previous couple seasons. Luke DeVere and Josh Laws started off there and both of them seemed like secondary CBs who needed a number one to bring the best out of them. Liam McGing did alright when he got a go. But Stevie T was the one who turned things around and it’s no coincidence that the club’s form exploded after he returned...
When Stevie T Played:
12 GM | 7W-4D-1L | +13 GD | 25 PTS | 2.08 PTS/GM
When Stevie T Didn’t Play:
14 GM | 3W-4D-7L | -3 GD | 13 PTS | 0.93 PTS/GM
The Nix outscored teams by 12 goals in the specific minutes that Taylor was on the field for. In his 819 minutes the Phoenix conceded only six times. They scored 18 times. That’s a +1.32 goal difference per ninety minutes with him out there (the best mark of any player in the squad). The problem was he only played 35% of the club’s overall minutes. In Uffie’s first season Taylor missed just 45 minutes in total.
Now we’ve gotta talk about home field advantage. In two home games, only two, the Wellington Phoenix put up the two biggest attendance figures of the entire regular season for any team. 24,105 against Western United in Wellington and 22,233 against Perth in Auckland. Gargantuan numbers there, a 433-day break between home games will cause a bubbling effect for sure but to break the club’s all time regular season attendance record is a big deal. Kiwi clubs in Aussie comps have had to cop a few extra sacrifices in the age of covid and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the people. Those two crowds were reflective of that and hopefully there’s a flow on into next season.
Some of the ‘trapped in Australia’ dramas have been overstated, to be fair. The club got a taste for the experience late last season so they knew what they were doing. Some of the local players were able to simply live at home, while others found rental apartments (the club were there from November until the start of June, basically). That meant complications for those with families, it also meant complications for anyone who didn’t own a home in Wellington – one of the reasons they couldn’t move back permanently during the season was that they’d have to suddenly find housing for most of the squad (amidst a housing crisis in Aotearoa, no less). Plus Aussie tax brackets apparently meant that some players effectively took 10% pay cuts, amidst all the other little dramas that come with relocating 30-odd people including staff... and the cost of it all was estimated in the seven-figure range. This for a club that was barely clinging on financially during the covid lockdowns.
But that’s not really an excuse. Professional footy players know that there are sacrifices that come with what they do... and for the import players the scenario’s pretty much the same as normal. The real problem was that they had the benefits of one of the best home field advantages in the competition taken away from them.
The Nix won handily in Wellington and should have won in Auckland too. Slap those two onto how they were tracking before the 433 days away and the Wellington Phoenix are now 11 games undefeated in Aotearoa (11 seems to be a recurring number in this article). Nine wins and two draws. 26 goals scored and 9 conceded. The last time they lost at home was on 27 October 2019 (2-1 against Perth). Any team that they host is having to travel to another country to play them. So for the Phoenix to effectively play all those ‘home’ games in a foreign country instead... yeah, that’ll get ya.
One point. That’s all it would have taken. Despite playing exclusively at away and neutral venues until the last couple weeks of the season, despite a terrible start to the campaign only winning one of the first eight games, despite a mounting injury/suspension crisis overlapping with that poor start, despite only having Steven Taylor out there for a third of it all, despite whatever other random or unprecedented yarns you wanna toss up as well. Somehow they still got within one point. Imagine what they could do with an even playing field.
If you rate the yarns on TNC, please support us on Patreon so we can afford to live (and write/record)
Then when you’ve done that, sign up to our Substack newsletter, slap an ad, and tell a mate about us
Keep cool but care