Getting Amongst The Tale Of Ben Waine’s Transfer To Plymouth Argyle
When a known transfer target shows up at a game being hosted in the director’s box there’s really only one outcome on the way. Ben Waine didn’t make the trip to Perth for the Wellington Phoenix’s game just before Christmas, officially listed as missing due to an illness, yet within a week he’d made an even longer trip all the way to the southwest of England where he was hosted as an honoured dignitary to witness Plymouth Argyle win 1-0 against Wycombe Wanderers. You can have three guesses as to what happened next.
Within a day Ben Waine was unveiled as Plymouth Argyle’s first signing of the January transfer window. The English League One club had tried to sign the 21-year-old All Whites striker a few months ago, before both theirs and the A-League’s seasons had kicked off, but back then they got served the big palms from the Welly Nix who didn’t feel that the bid submitted was sufficient for a player that they had under contract for two further seasons.
Instead Waine remained with the Phoenix as their A-League season got underway, scoring three times as the team progressed to the quarter-finals of the Australia Cup and then another three times in the early rounds of the A-League itself. Over which time Plymouth Argyle must have passed the collection hat around because by the next transfer window they’d found the funds they needed. An increased bid and there ya go. They got their man.
The tale of how this came about from a Plymouth Argyle perspective is pretty fascinating. Obviously the bloke is a fan favourite amongst the Welly Nix community, he’s the Waine Train after all, a home-grown success story continuing on an increasingly proud tradition at the club. We’ll come back around to the Phoenix’s situation later on... but why did Argyle show such persistence in chasing a young striker from the other side of the world?
Sometimes in football it’s all about who you know and there were a few very crucial bridges between Ben Waine and Plymouth Argyle. For starters, this club was the former home of Rory Fallon who played 160 times for the Pilgrims between 2007–2011, the most for any team during his much-travelled career. Fallon even spent a short time on the coaching staff of the club after his retirement. More recently he’s worked as an assistant coach with the All Whites and is currently the head of youth development with the Phoenix. What’s more is that Waine’s current Nix teammate Scott Wootton is an ex-Argyle comrade, spending a couple seasons there around the time that current manager Steven Schumacher was first hired as an assistant coach.
As if that isn’t enough, gaffer Schumacher (38 years old in his first full-time managerial role) played two seasons with Fleetwood Town from 2013 to 2015... where he was a teammate of another current Phoenix import: David Ball. In fact they weren’t merely teammates, they were mates full stop. Schumacher is the godfather to Ball’s son.
According to Schumacher, Plymouth first took notice of Ben Waine while they were scouting English defender Macaulay Gillesphey who was playing for Brisbane Roar at the time (signed when Robbie Fowler was the manager). They scooped up Gillesphey the season before this one, he’s now a regular in their backline. But while they were looking out for that bloke they also took notice of the buzzy young kiwi striker playing for Wellington, an interest that was reinforced by positive recommendations from both Fallon and Ball (with Wootton getting in Waine’s ear to sell the club on his end).
Steven Schumacher: “A couple of years ago when we signed Macaulay Gillesphey I watched a few games of the A-League. I have got a friend who played for Wellington Phoenix in David Ball. I had seen this young lad, a centre-forward, who looked energetic. He [Ball] kept in contact and said 'You need to keep your eye on him, there is a few English clubs interested in him and he's really good, and he would suit you the way you work down to the ground.' That was when we first started watching Macca, so we just kept tabs on him. We put a bid in for him in the summer and tried to bring him here but we couldn't get to the money that Wellington wanted. Thankfully we have managed to do that in the January window.”
It helped that Waine has English parents which made the paperwork much easier – that alone would have been a significant selling point. No need to fuss about passports. Plus Ben Waine really wanted it. By all accounts he’s been desperate to get in on the English football pyramid for a wee while now, having always harboured that ambition in the long run. He himself knocked back interest from Championship side Coventry in 2021 to instead sign an extension with the Nix, feeling he needed to prioritise first-team football at that stage of his development (he was 19 at the time), but now things done changed.
One benefit of joining the Pilgrims now as opposed to before the season is that they’re currently four points clear at the top of the League One ladder. Plymouth have had an excellent season so far which also includes progressing to the quarter-finals of the EFL Trophy (the specific lower-league cup competition). We’re only halfway through the term but they’re a good shout to get promoted which, hypothetically, would give Ben Waine five months of League One with which to get acclimatised to English footy – playing for a very good team where there’ll be little to no pressure on him to begin with – and then in at the deep end of the Champo.
He wasn’t able to play any part in the first game after he signed, a New Year’s Day victory against Milton Keynes Dons, though that was only because his registration hadn’t been finalised. Despite the hefty travel schedule to get there, Waine has already taken part in some light training and the manager didn’t rule out the possibility of including him in the squad for the weekend’s clash with Bolton. In fact he seemed to suggest that it’s a very good chance of happening.
Steven Schumacher: “Bolton will be a possibility. That gives him seven days to get over his jet-lag, and get up to speed with the training. Obviously, he has been on a long flight and a long journey and we don't want to put his body through too much too soon. With the squad being the way it is, and how everyone is playing well, there is no real pressure to throw him straight in. He's going to take his time and get up to speed. He's going to add to what we have got in the squad. He's not here to replace anyone, he's just making us stronger.”
Despite not intending him to replace anyone, Plymouth have since had forward Morgan Whittaker recalled from his loan by parent club Swansea City. Argyle tried to negotiate new terms to the loan, including offering to buy him permanently, but no dice. Whittaker bagged 9 goals and 7 assists in 25 games for Argyle, including one of each in that 3-1 win over MK Dons.
Another reason why Ben Waine was an attractive prospect to them is that Plymouth Argyle haven’t exactly been a beacon of financial stability in recent times. They’ve struggled to balance the books for a number of years and while things are much better nowadays with success bringing increased gate revenue, etc... they still aren’t in a place to compete with the big donnies of the division (and that’ll be even more pronounced if they get promoted). Instead they have to do things more efficiently than their rivals in order to compete. Scouting and analytics and internal development and clever recruitment. They’re looking for out-of-the-box diamonds, players that other clubs haven’t recognised yet. You know who fits that bill? Ben Waine.
Steven Schumacher, again: “I still think we are punching above our weight from a financial point of view. This year our budget might be the 13th or 14th biggest in League One because we have increased it slightly. Last year, we probably had the 16th or 17th biggest and we got 80 points. We know where we are at as a club. We cannot compete financially with Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday, Derby, Bolton and Portsmouth. We have not got the finances that they have just yet so we have to think smarter. That is the brief from the owner and the CEO. That means better data analysis, better recruitment processes. That is what gives us the chance to be competitive. We have proven this season and last that we can compete. We want to keep improving every single week and see where it takes us.”
This brings us to Ben Waine, the footballer. A Wellingtonian by birth who attended Hutt International Boys' School, Waino’s been involved with the Wellington Phoenix his entire career. Came up through the academy and into the first team and about the only time he’s been seen in any other colours has been when he’s played for the various New Zealand teams. Waine was the youngest member of the U20 World Cup squad that made the knockouts in 2019 – scoring a double against Honduras in the tournament opener. He was second top scorer (behind Myer Bevan) for the NZ U23s in their regional Olympic qualifying competition and then made three appearances at the Tokyo Olympics themselves. And he’s since become a fully fledged senior All White, scoring the winning goal on debut against Papua New Guinea. Waine has seven caps to date.
He’s been equally as handy for the Wellington Phoenix. Making his debut in an Aussie Cup game roughly two months after his seventeenth birthday, his league debut would come later that same season. In between he set himself up with the reserves where he top scored with eight goals in the NZ Premiership. He only scored seven the following NZ Prem season... but that was because he only played five games having cracked the first team by that stage. Waine would become the Wellington Phoenix’s youngest ever goal scorer (18y 145d) when he hit the back of the net in a game against Melbourne City and he hasn’t slowed down since.
Despite all that, Waine was not the no-doubter prospect coming up that guys like Joe Bell or Sarpreet Singh were. In fact as a scrawny teenager his player profile didn’t particularly stand out from the crowd at all. Tall but not too tall. Fast but not too fast. Skilful but not too skilful. A solid academy player but not one who was always destined to be a professional. Until, that is, you accounted for The Knack.
Because the one overwhelming thing about Ben Waine in each of those teams/opportunities is that he made things happen. He scored goals. He got involved. Whether he was operating on the wing where he played a lot of his footy prior to making the Nix first team or as the centre-forward that Ufuk Talay (his Phoenix manager for any Argyle fans reading this) soon developed him into, the same thing was true. At a certain point that Knack becomes undeniable.
Then once he got established in that Phoenix first team it was remarkable how quickly he developed, refining his tactical sense and building himself up physically. Plenty of hours in the gym and despite his youthful visage he was now not a bloke to be pushed around. Those who’ve worked with him rave about his attitude and his work-rate... factors that seem to have resonated with Plymouth Argyle as well.
Waino’s finishing is his sharpest trait. He can whallop a ball with either foot and scores a decent number of headers too. His movement has come on heaps over the last couple years and he’s become increasingly decent playing with his back to goal too. His conversion rate is excellent. He’s good in transition. With his goals and infectious enthusiasm he pretty swiftly became a cult hero at Sky Stadium in Wellington.
It will be curious to see where he fits in for a Plymouth team that tends to prefer a 3-4-2-1 formation with a nine and two tens. They’re flexible enough to use those tens as wingers and have on occasion gone with two central forwards. The latter is ideal for Waine who has been doing his thing mostly in two-striker formations with the Welly Nix, though it could take some time to adjust to playing as a lone nine. Here’s another testimony from his new manager...
Steven Schumacher: “He can play on the shoulder, similar to Ryan Hardie, he's good with his back to play and linking up, probably similar to Niall Ennis, and he has got really good movement in the box, which is similar to Jephs (Luke Jephcott). What he hasn't got is Sam Cosgrove's 6ft 4 heading ability, but he competes. If he competes and puts himself about he has got a chance of getting on the end of crosses.”
Cosgrove, Hardie, and Ennis are the three blokes who’ve done the striker things for the Pilgrims, each with ten league goals. Jephcott is a younger fella who’s gotten a few digs off the bench. Also chuck Whittaker into that formula too although he’s now gone. They’re the guys that Ben Waine will be competing with for minutes – note that Cosgrove is on loan from Birmingham. But don’t worry there because they’ve clearly got a plan for him if they pursued him this hard.
Finally, gotta serve up a word of admiration for the Wellington Phoenix production line. They’ve always been decent at bringing through a few first teamers and some USA college scholarship folks. But these days, especially under Ufuk Talay who has shown a willingness to trust the youngsters in his first team, they’re moving in overdrive. Last season twelve academy players got A-League minutes for the Nix along with three more who made matchday squads. And that wasn’t merely for the vibes. Guys like Waine, Sam Sutton, Ben Old, Callan Elliot, and Finn Surman have all been valuable contributors. Hence there’s no reason to think they’ll sign a local replacement for Ben Waine – Uffie will simply boost the status of guys like Oskar van Hattum and Noah Karunaratne instead.
An academy that develops reliable first teamers is a good academy. An academy that not only develops players for themselves but also for other teams is a great academy. Sarpreet Singh left the Wellington Phoenix to sign with Bayern Munich. Liberato Cacace moved to Sint-Truiden in Belgium and has since gone on to Empoli in Italy. Ben Waine has now signed with Plymouth Argyle.
All three of those lads were signed for transfer fees. Not mere compensation but actual ‘we’ll give you this amount of money if you let us have your player’ cash converters goodness. We don’t know what kinda figure Plymouth Argyle paid for the services of Benjamin Waine but we do know they’ve got a Certified Player on their hands now.
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