Look, this was only ever likely to go one way. The Wellington Phoenix weren’t gonna rock up on the A-League Women’s scene with a squad half-full of teenagers and only a handful of players who’ve played professionally before and immediately start whupping teams. Things take time. A gritty 0-0 draw with Western Sydney Wanderers first up looks fantastic on the record books but most other teams are a little more potent than WSW and we’ve seen how that goes since: four straight defeats with a combined goal difference of -13.

Yet this is not a normal season. The Phoenix got their ALW licence at a time when most teams had already put together the bulk of their squad. They were slapped with a quota of a minimum of seven Australian signings and any internationals would have to come out of their remaining kiwi player allotment. Meaning, since NZ Football were doing a lot of the bankrolling for this project, that there would be zero international players. That may change in the future – the men’s team has no such restrictions – but for now that’s the condition that Gemma Lewis’ team is having to cope with.

Across the league there aren’t as many visa players as usual this season, for obvious reasons, but every other team still has at least two. The Phoenix don’t have any. Not only that but when they got the green light to start putting a squad together all the best Australian players had already been signed up so they’ve had to, by necessity, pick up ladies who otherwise were not gonna make an A-League roster. Some coming back from injuries, others a year or two away from otherwise making the grade at a contending club. They also had less of a preseason than anyone despite having an entirely new squad (a handicap on both ends) and oh yeah they’ve gotta spend pretty much the entire season based in a foreign country which nobody else is having to do either, obviously.

It’s not just the inexperience that we’re talking about here. Almost everything was stacked against the Welly Nix from day one and that’s fine because their objectives are different than everyone else too. Winning games, scoring goals... these are targets but they’re not the be all and end all. For the HeNix, who are facing several of the same obstacles, there’s an understandable frustration and an edging sense of panic as results go awry. For the SheNix – and this cannot be stressed hard enough – the aim is simply for constant improvement. Week to week, game to game. Improving each time. Adjusting to professional football and learning what it takes to be successful.

If that translates into a win or two later in the season then sweet as, how good. But if it doesn’t then there’s no need to freak out. There are players in this squad who are getting a massive jump start on their careers thanks to this season. It may take a couple years before the Phoenix are competitive and if it does then so be it – better for Alyssa Whinham to be waxing defenders at ALW level than in the South Central Series. To be honest, this is not a whole lot different from when NBA or NFL teams tank a season in order to prioritise development (and draft picks) for future seasons. Only this way’s less cynical as it was effectively forced upon the Phoenix. They had a choice between an undercooked team or no team and that’s no choice at all... give us the prospects and let’s see ‘em dive straight into the deep end.

This past week has given us a pair of fascinating glimpses as to what that looks like. First up was a 1-0 defeat against the Newcastle Jets in which they rallied nicely after a 5-1 defeat against the same opponents last meeting to valiantly hold on until the 83rd minute before finally conceding, going down 1-0.

Then a return clash with Sydney FC a few days later, on the short turnaround, where the Sky Blues absolutely blew them out of the water early on. Sydney scored after four minutes and were leading 5-0 at the half. It could quite seriously have been double that. The Nix then battened down the hatches as their opponents cooled off in a scoreless second half to keep it from getting any uglier but still a very heavy defeat.

You can tell that development is the priority by how that Gemma Lewis has managed her squad. There are nine players who have started all five matches to date. Five of those players have played every single minute. Alyssa Whinham has worked her way into the starting team while Kelli Brown and Grace Jale have dealt with injuries and other than that it’s all been extremely stable even as team performances have fluctuated. Lewis is letting them learn on the job. If she wasn’t then that second Sydney game would have seen at least a couple changes because the way that Cortnee Vine savaged Saskia Vosper down the Nix’s right edge last time was more than a warning: it was a threat. Sure enough Vine did more of the same at the second opportunity, multiple goals coming from down that side.

If the Nix were purely about the here and now then Talitha Kramer would have started at fullback without a doubt. She’s the oldest player in the squad and has never let them down playing off the bench in each of the four games she’s been available for. Zoe McMeeken, meanwhile, is the youngest player in the squad and has some absolutely massive potential but her defensive instincts are raw as hell. Quick decisive play against her in isolation tends to reap benefits. Raw pace out wide is something neither fullback has been able to handle and with them under pressure the central defenders are caught between leaving their positions to cover or holding back and focusing on their own job – there’s been examples of both strategies going awry, truly a no-win scenario – and on top of that the midfield has been guilty of reacting slowly themselves. Lots of chances coming against this team from second phase stuff. Way too many of them.

The irony is that their defence has been the most impressive aspect so far. Lily Alfeld’s made some mint saves (although she’s maybe a touch hesitant to come off her line sometimes). The two CBs, Mackenzie Barry and Kate Taylor, look absolute sure bets for long professional careers. They defend well in structure as they proved in the Newcastle game (even if, sure, a more clinical team would have put them away a lot earlier). But when they’re taken out of that structure... that’s where their inexperience is such a killer.

The game after that 0-0 draw with Western Sydney, they lost 5-1 to Newcastle. The game after the 1-0 loss to Newcastle, they lost 5-0 to Sydney (there was a middling 3-0 loss to SYD in the middle too). A positive performance tends to be followed by a much less positive performance. The same trend is clear within their matches. They visibly grow with confidence the longer they’re able to keep teams out and keep themselves in the contest but then when they do concede they have a tendency to ship two or three or even four more in a bit of a hurry.

Against the Jets first time the Nix went from 1-0 down after 54 minutes to 5-0 down after 73 mins (before pulling one back late on). They shipped five in one half against Sydney. This is what the learning curve looks like in action: compounded mistakes, poor game management, and general inconsistency.

But that’s the whole point. You don’t get experience without going through all that. Ordinarily, there’d only be a couple of players in this situation in any squad and they’d be carried by the senior pros around them. That’s not an option for the Nix here where almost the entire team is in that same bag. Thus the girls are out there being trusted to play through their mistakes and learn, building combinations and improving upon the game-plan and all that.

That’s why it doesn’t really feel right to talk about the attacking deficiencies in the team because it’s all a part of the same process. Defence and attack can’t really be separated when a team is in its early growth stages. We’re talking about deeper things here. Simpler things. We’re not up to the attacking third fluidity chapter of this book yet. Give it a chance.

For starters, the passing has been a mess. You see this a lot with teams who work so hard to win the ball... only to give it away again in a hurry. They try to play with the same tempo in possession as they had without it, lacking that composure to just put a foot on it and slow things down. To consolidate. This team has a couple of central defenders who are very good passers (though in the first game vs SYD especially they were caught on the ball way too often – another example of still figuring out how much time and space they have at this level) and there are times when they do this well. Just, not enough of those times.

More annoying is the tendency to try and force things with one miracle pass when two or three passes would get the same job done much more safely. Big switches to a teammate in space on the opposite wing when there was time to go around the wheel to a midfielder, then a fullback, then forward to the winger without compromising the move. That kinda thing. It’s impatience and it’s a lack of confidence on the ball. Thankfully this ain’t that tough of a fix... it’s just one more example of a bad habit that you can only solve by working through it.

And, yeah, there’s some crap execution in there too sometimes. It’s always an ugly one when a simple pass gets sprayed... but that’s just raw players being raw. Absolutely the Phoenix need to be better with those things and they will get better as they get more used to the A-League. It’s the decision making which is more decisive for careers in the long run.

When the passing sharpens up, the team will spend less time in defence and ease up on the pressure (more decisive clearances would help too, cut out more of those second phase yarns). They’ll also be more potent going forward. There’s nothing much you can say about their finishing when the main problem is that they’re hardly ever getting into shooting positions. Their best weapon, the thing they’ve set up their team around, is the high press but you don’t get to press high when you’re cramped into your own half the whole time.

There are a heap of areas where the team can improve, no doubt about it. 14 goals conceded in their last four losses doesn’t leave any wiggle room for that statement. Some of those things are bound to get the written treatment on this here website at some stage... but for now the point has to be emphasised and underlined and hammered home and all them things that this is not a normal season. This is a development year. This is a bridge season into the A-League. Of course they’re out there trying to score goals and win games and do as well as they possibly can at every opportunity but they’re not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

So, you know, keep it chilled with the hot takes. Don’t judge the Welly Nix against criteria that the team itself isn’t worried about. The coach knows what’s up, the players know what’s up, the club knows what’s up. It’s a situation brought about by necessity and pragmatic priorities. Don’t worry about it. Support the team, cheer when they’re on attack, sigh if they concede, but keep this whole thing in context as you do.

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