Nothing ever stays the same for long in kiwi football but this past week in particular has been a real doozy. A-League expansion speculation has got everyone talking but more immediately relevant is that the Women’s National League has gotten a revamp. The 2023 season will feature two additional teams via a tweak in the format. The hybrid model with the federation teams against Northern League clubs remains for now, though this is clearly another firm step towards becoming fully club-based down the line.

That’s a process that we’ve already been through with the Men’s National League so the Women are being brought along for the ride. The blokes clearly had to change something because NZF had already spoiled the franchise format by including club teams, the ladies then had to follow in the interests of equality. The women’s format was actually working quite nicely with regional teams churning along... but it’s probably better, in the bigger picture, to have that alignment. Keep that proximity between the MNL and WNL so that both can feed off each other’s energy (and more valuably: each other’s resources).

Annoyingly this does mean that the WNL will now be structured as a single round robin rather than the home and away fixtures of last year. Then a grand final to follow – exactly the same as the men’s comp. But there’s no perfect formula and this revamp is an overwhelming positive thanks to one major aspect: the inclusion of a Wellington Phoenix reserve team.

It had to be inevitable, especially when NZF are trying to have mirrored men’s and women’s leagues, now it’s happening. The WeeNix Women will get automatic qualification every year – although so do all the remaining federation teams so that doesn’t mean as much in this comp (yet) as with the fellas. It does appear that Women’s Reserves will also be an U20s team although you’d imagine they’ll have the same ability to pick a handful of older first-teamers in need of minutes. Some of the ALW side are still under the age of twenty anyway.

This is huge because this means there’s now a clear pathway all the way to the A-League for the burgeoning women’s side of the academy. It also means that top players who’ve aligned themselves with that Nix Academy, but don’t have ALW contracts, no longer have to skip out on National League footy. Thinking of players like Macey Fraser, Tui Dugan, Emma Main, and Helena Errington for example. All huge talents (Main is a bit older though), all pictured in this shot below. As are Ella McMillan and Olivia Ingham who were part of the U17 World Cup squad. Aimee Feinberg-Danieli is there too, she played for Auckland United last year and was the starting goalie for those U17s. Just to name a few (can’t guarantee 100% identification accuracy there without names being listed but you get the idea).

We want those players getting regular games. We want to see them raising the standard in the National League. We also want to see the Wellington Phoenix able to house as much talent as they can, nurturing them along, offering that professional-adjacent player development pathway that only they really possess. especially since the Welly Nix seem to have kinda swallowed up the Future Ferns Development Programme, both in terms of their place and purpose in the footy structure and also literally as FFDP players were being classed as A-League Offseason Programme players in the various national team selections last year. Not sure exactly what’s going on there, never saw any official announcements or even a squad list in 2022 (but feel free to hit up the DMs if you know better).

The Phoenix will now have competitive teams at U15, U17, and U20 level taking part in Capital Football competitions, with the U20s also getting National League entry. Full integration. And if you know anything about the Phoenix Academy then you’ll know that the boy’s side has been sizzling in recent years, contributing a bulk of players to national youth sides and consistently delivering dudes capable of competing for the A-League side (and beyond). That’s now an achievable aim for the women/girls as well.

Time for a tangent, because while that’s all fine and dandy... it’s also true to say that we don’t want to find ourselves in a situation where the Wellington Phoenix are handling the bulk of New Zealand’s player production. Diverse pathways is always better. Means there’s more room for everyone to thrive. The strongest men’s youth national teams of recent years have had a combo of Nix Academy and Ole Academy players with others (mostly from Auckland clubs) scattered in there too. This is where the idea of an Auckland A-League team comes in handy.

It’s all hypothetical at this point. The Australian Professional Leagues bosses have announced that they’ve selected Canberra and Auckland as the two preferred destinations for future expansion, the two markets that they’re keenest to add in other words. But licence fees are excessive and nothing’s costed. It’s possible that the Auckland City folks will take this further, it’s possible some other parties will do so instead. It’s also possible that it’s all too expensive and nothing happens.

But if we do get an Auckland A-League side then that will mean men’s and women’s both. It could also mean more U20s teams in the National Leagues. Most importantly it’d mean a professional high performance programme in Aotearoa’s most populous city. Best case scenario... think of the success that the Nix have had bringing players through (Singh, Cacace, Waine, etc.) and then double it.

That’s all getting very far ahead of ourselves but just know right now that anyone who tells you we don’t have the talent in NZ to prop up two professional teams is not paying enough attention. Because the Wellington Phoenix aren’t out there gathering up the top players from the National League. Look at the kiwi guys they’ve got at the moment: Payne, Barbarouses, Rufer, Elliott, Sutton, Sail, Lewis, Boxall, Paulsen, Surman, van Hattum, Karunaratne... most of them came through the academy as internal promotions. Not all of them, Payne and Lewis certainly fit that bill. As did Rufer and Sail several years earlier. Boxall is a more recent example. Plus folks like Elliot and Surman did join the academy from other parts of the country. But the academy is their main source of local influx.

Rest assured that there are many more where they came from, especially if you give an Auckland team a few years to get an academy flow going. Take two evenly matched 15 year olds but put one into an A-League academy and leave the other to do their own thing... guess which one will be more ready for pro footy four years later? (More times than not, anyway, this is football not mathematics so there are always exceptions – also refer to that point about the value of having a multitude of pathways). Auckland City alone has at least six players who could hold their own in the A-League. As do Wellington Olympic. Chuck in five imports, maybe another couple kiwis who aren’t getting minutes at overseas clubs or who are playing at Australian NPL level, as well as a few veteran Aussies with prior ALM experience. Then away we go.

Same deal with the women. The Welly Nix built their squad out of mostly young players. There are more NZers at Aussie ALW clubs than ever before. There are brilliant players young and less-young who are just as ready for the A-League as most of the Phoenix team were before last season. If they aimed a little older then they may even have a smoother start to their existence. Begin with recent Ferns call-ups Tayla O’Brien, Deven Jackson, and Rebecca Lake and go from there.

Would like to take a second to hype up a few of the amateur clubs around the motu who are putting emphasis on player development and doing good things. It shouldn’t have to be a prerequisite for everyone but credit where it’s due. Auckland United had some very tidy youngsters in both their women’s and men’s teams (including Milly Clegg). Clubs like Birkenhead, Western Springs, and Eastern Suburbs have not only got strong youth systems but they find places for them in first teams. Melville’s MNL side had a couple of fantastic U20s players. Christchurch United seem to be really pouring resources into their youth academy and we’re starting to see a few age grade standouts emerge from there.

So that’s all cool. Back to the revamped Women’s National League, the other new team is going to be an additional Capital Football selection. Can’t say that’s as exciting as a WeeNix side considering that Capital were second-to-last in 2022 with two of their three wins coming against last-placed Central. Admittedly there were doubts as to whether that squad included all of the best talent in the region... but the WeeNix are also largely drawing from that same Capital Football player pool.

The most competitive thing to do would have been to add a fifth Northern team except that’d also mean having 5/8 NRFL Women’s Prem teams making the Natty League which would be rather silly. The main thing to recognise is that these changes are being made as part of a longer term vision of going fully-club based, presumably with three clubs (plus the Nix) from the Central/Capital region qualifying, as is the case in the MNL. Apparently a review will take place after the 2023 season so see whether to stick with the federation teams in 2024 or not which means this second Capital team might only be a one-season wonder. There’s also a point in there about Capital working closely with clubs to provide its teams, hinting at a kinda hybrid-within-the-hybrid thing going on.

Meanwhile the Canterbury United and Southern United teams will continue for at least a couple more seasons with 2026 pencilled in for when the South Island will go club-based. However there will be an integrated South Island league beginning this year to get that ball rolling and that will eventually become the qualifying path for those clubs. Again, this is already the case for the men.

Last year made it pretty obvious that the club teams, despite the presumably smaller catchment areas, had a huge advantage over the federation teams due to their full winter seasons compared to just a couple of weeks of prep for the feds. The second round of fixtures saw those fates even out somewhat but by then it was too late for anyone to catch Eastern Suburbs or Western Springs. That’s backed up by the NZF claim that: “the feedback we had from the 2022 women’s National League Championship was that participants want to move to a club-based competition as soon as possible”.

Having said that, a few of those teams did alter quite drastically from mid-winter to the end of summer. Northern Rovers were NRFL champs but couldn’t sustain a title challenge after losing some key players to other opportunities. Auckland United won the Kate Sheppard Cup then had similar issues as well as a couple retirements and injuries and at times could barely field a team during the Nats. We’re talking outfielders going in goal levels of scarcity.

Worth mentioning that Southern and Canterbury Utd in particular did really get it going over the back half of the 2022 season. It’s not the ability, it was the preparation that was the main issue. The proof is in the statistical pudding. The four Auckland teams combined for 13 wins, 2 draws, and 1 loss with a goal difference of +57 in their respective first meetings with the fed sides. In their second meetings we’re talking about 9 wins, 2 draws, and 5 defeats with a goal difference of +23. Still bossing it but not by nearly as much.

Of course there is no second round any longer... but there are two more non-club teams. Whether that means anything to the competitive balance of the league is something we won’t find out until the end of the year. It’s a tricky situation. The reason they didn’t go straight to full-club competition was a worry over whether the non-NRFL clubs could compete. Well, the federation teams couldn’t really compete for the first couple months either. Gotta wonder if the benefit of that full winter season together might override the difficulty of getting a fed team to gel in such a short time. We’ll find out in a couple years. In the meantime, the fed teams remain as competitive placeholders.

The single round robin means fewer games overall which is not ideal. However those club teams do have their entire winter seasons as well, which for the highly competitive NRFL Premiership teams should be of a similar competitive level to the National League (since they were the ones setting the standard). But we’ll leave that all to play out on its own for now. The most important thing is we’ve got a Phoenix Reserves side out of all this.

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