Will this be the season that a team from outside Auckland wins the Women’s National League? Probably not because West Coast Rangers just experienced the breakthrough of winning the NRFL Premiership while Auckland United will be as motivated as ever after letting that one slip... as they proved with a commanding win in the Kate Sheppard Cup final a week later. Eastern Suburbs and Western Springs are never to be counted out either. You never know, though - these last two years have seen Southern United and Waterside Karori make the final (where they were each beaten by Auckland United). Southern’s squad looks awesome ahead of their latest campaign. Karori didn’t qualify... but Wellington United were untouchable in the Central League and have some enticing additions for the Nats. There are no foregone conclusions here.

Reiterating what was written for the Men’s Season Preview, the vision for TNC’s coverage hasn’t changed. We’re talking about weekly roundups of each league (expect them on Tuesday, give or take... they do require a bit of effort to put together so you’ll understand). There are apps if you just want the scores, we’re here for the deeper context. Get on board with our Twitter/Facebook/Instagram offerings too because that’s where we’ll be serving up a few highlight clips. And sign up for our Substack email dispatch on Mondays and Thursdays where you’ll get to see our WNL & MNL Team of the Week selections.

And one further note to say that if you appreciate the domestic football coverage then hop on over to Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee or join the Paid Substack whanau to support the work... it simply would not be possible to do this without the generous contributions of our readers so much love to those who are already onboard.

West Coast Rangers

Coach: Andrew Clay

League: NRFL Premiership Champions

Kate Sheppard Cup: Lost 2-1 to Auckland United in Round 4

Top Scorer: Shannon Henson (19 goals)

Key Players: Marissa Porteous is an unreal player at this level while Maisy Dewell and Shannon Henson also keep the standards very high and Minji Yun has had a huge impact since joining at the start of the year

Notable Youngster: Prodigious shot-stopping keeper Sophie Campbell and goal-hungry striker Emily Lyon are both currently away with the NZ U19s... and if you wanna go younger then Taylor Vujnovich is in the U17 picture and looks a serious talent

One step at a time has been the motto for West Coast Rangers. In 2021, they were promoted to the top division as champs of the Championship. In 2022, WCR finished in sixth place in the NRFL Prem. In 2023, they finished fifth and missed out on National League qualification by a single point (though Marissa Porteous and Kendra Smith went and played for Southern instead and helped them make a grand final). In 2024, they finished second in the NRFL Prem, 10 points behind undefeated leaders Auckland United, and mustered a solid fifth-place in their debut Nats campaign where they won more games than they lost. In 2025, they lifted the NRFL championship finishing one-point ahead of Auckland Utd and now the National League awaits. It’s been a steady rise for the WCR ladies. With some lovely additions to the framework from last year, there’s a little more depth and experience ready to take it further and prove themselves as one of Aotearoa’s finest.

Auckland United

Coach: Ben Bate

League: Second in NRFL Premiership

Kate Sheppard Cup: Champions – Won 4-1 vs Phoenix Reserves in the Final

Top Scorer: Zoe Benson (11 goals)

Key Players: They have key players in every position but it’s hard to look past the defensive midfield prowess of Yume Harashima and the box-to-box engine of Chloe Knott, those two are the foundations

Notable Youngster: Zoe Benson has been up among the top assisters in the WNL for the last two seasons and she’s still young enough to be playing for the NZ U19s in Tahiti at the moment, she joined from Eastern Suburbs at the start of the year and hasn’t missed a beat... might also get a chance to see 15yo Ariana Vosper at some stage

A funny thing happened on the way to another quadruple: Auckland United slipped up on the final day of the season, losing 2-1 to Fencibles and thus allowing West Coast Rangers to snatch the league title from them. A 3-1 defeat against Eastern Suburbs two games prior didn’t help either. But AUFC easily won the OFC Champions League and they were superb in bouncing back in the KSC Final. That’s two trophies down with one still to go... this one. The National League title that they’ve won two years in a row. They’re also going to be popping over to China in October for a knockout game against Wuhan Jiangda in the inaugural FIFA Women's Champions Cup (which will presumably mess with some WNL fixtures).

So many big names in this squad. Chloe Knott and Yume Harashima run that midfield. Ava Collins has 16 caps for NZ and was a standout in the KSC Final. Hannah Mitchell, their American goalkeeper, is as good as they come. Talisha Green leads by example from right-back. And just in case you thought that Auckland United was already stacked enough, they’ve made some sizzling additions for the Nats. Kiara Bercelli is back after a few years in Italy with Sampdoria. She was playing Serie A last year (same level as Katie Bowen... albeit for a much worse team) but they got relegated and then decided they couldn’t afford a women’s team any more so here’s Bercelli with AUFC (she was a Canterbury United player previously). Experienced Aussie defender Kris Molloy joins after a stint in America. And perhaps most exciting is Siobhan Edwards, twin sister of NZ internaional Brianna Edwards... except she’s a striker not a goalkeeper. Scored 12 times for Illawarra Stingrays (playing alongside her sister) in the NPL this year. Bri spent a few years with the Wellington Phoenix but this is Siobhan’s introduction to kiwi footy.

Eastern Suburbs

Coach: Adam Thurston

League: Third in NRFL Premiership

Kate Sheppard Cup: Lost 1-0 to Auckland United in the Semi-Finals

Top Scorer: Victoria Neuefeind (13 goals)

Key Players: Neuefeind’s goals were massive, of course (Sofia Garcia’s too), though it all starts at the back for Subs where Yukino Nishizono and Kenya Brooke can usually be found locking things up

Notable Youngster: There’s an U17 World Cup upcoming which could take a few girls away since ESAFC usually have a presence in NZ age grade squads - Hannah Saxon, Charley March, and Amelia Hitchcock have gotten amongst the more recent crops

There’s an exaggerated rivalry between Eastern Suburbs and Western Springs that’s born not only of both being among the best teams in the country but also a huge amount of player turnover between the two. That went to another level when coach Katie Duncan left ESAFC to join Western Springs mid-season... but the Lilywhites laughed loudest finishing 11 points clear of fourth-placed Springs. They won’t have Anna Leat who dropped by to get her goalkeeping reps up ahead of joining former ESAFC head coach Stephen Hoyle’s Newcastle Jets team (as it stands Hoyle has signed four NZers: Leat, Charlotte Lancaster, Olivia Page & Kelli Brown... with Brown the only one who never played for Suburbs), and we’ll see if Ruby Nathan sticks around... but they will have one of their favourite daughters back in Rebekah van Dort, the centre-back and former club captain who has been overseas in Canada and Australia for a bit. Vicki Neuefeind (England) has been a fantastic pick-up, as has more recent addition TJ Anderson (USA). Fijian international Cema Nasau is an exciting forward and we may even see a bit of Tayla O’Brien as the Lilywhites legend continues to ramp up her footy after a long-term injury. The Lilywhites are the only team to have beaten both Auckland United and West Coast Rangers this year.

Western Springs

Coach: Katie Duncan

League: Fourth in NRFL Premiership

Kate Sheppard Cup: Lost 2-0 to Eastern Suburbs in the Quarter-Finals

Top Scorer: Liz Savage (7 goals)

Key Players: If Rina Hirano and Arisa Takeda are playing then the answer is Rina Hirano and Arisa Takeda same as it has been for several years

Notable Youngster: Hard to narrow it down at this stage but Cleo Carmichael, Sienna Makwanna, and Dara Mulrooney have all gotten decent minutes for the senior team this year

Western Springs are always there or thereabouts. This year they’ve qualified (again) for both the Men’s and Women’s National Leagues (joined by Auckland United and the Wellington Phoenix in that achievement)... but there are signs that the women won’t be as competitive as they usually are. They were a distant fourth in the NRFL and only won 1/9 games against the three teams above them (1/10 including their cup exit). The likes of Rina Hirano, Arisa Takeda, Liz Savage, and Tiana Hill are all still involved and not even Auckland United can challenge the Football Ferns pedigree at WSAFC with capped internationals Savage, Katie Rood, Sarah Morton, and Emma Kete having all featured for the Swans at times this year (not to mention centurion Katie Duncan as coach). But perhaps they’re not as deep beyond their veterans and youth graduates? We shall see. Nelson’s Anna McPhie was a standout for Canterbury United last year and she at least bucks that idea.

Central Football

Coach: Mikaela Bouwmeester & Donald Piper

League: N/A

Kate Sheppard Cup: N/A

Top Scorer: N/A

Key Players: Charlotte Noakes and Kate MacPherson (both PN Marist) are the only two in this squad who started games for Central in last year’s WNL... while the outside recruits Caitlyn Byrne (Tauranga Moana), Iris Reweti-Gould (Miramar Rangers), and Jacque Broughton (also Miramar) will hopefully add something

Notable Youngster: That’s something we’re going to have to watch to find out... in the meantime let’s just say all of them

Central Football are basically set up to fail. It’s hard enough for the Federation teams as it is, having only a couple of weeks to coax their squad together to play against club teams who’ve been building all season for this. Then you add in that Central have to do that spanning the entire width of the North Island with players based from Napier to Palmerston North to New Plymouth and several points in between. Try organising training sessions around that, right? Plus the best players in the region inevitably move elsewhere to challenge themselves further (the Wellington Phoenix love a few Central reps in their Reserves). Therefore every year the Central squad is the youngest and most inexperienced of all the teams, inevitably finishing last after a bunch of heavy defeats. They’ve got a new coaching team this year but the balance of the squad is the same as ever (for some reason they announced their Youth League squad and their National League squad together in one bulk... probably because most WNL players are still eligible for YNL) and there’s hardly any crossover between last year’s squad and this one. However, we are coming off a year where four Central region clubs contested the Women’s Central League and none got relegated, with Palmerston North Marist and Taradale having particularly good mid-table campaigns. Eleven different clubs are represented between their WNL and YNL squads. They’ll almost certainly finish last again but we ought to discover a few new rising talents out of it. We always do with Central.

Wellington United

Coach: André Cantin-Buckley

League: Central League Champions

Kate Sheppard Cup: Lost 1-0 to Wellington Phoenix Reserves in Round 4

Top Scorer: Natalie Olson (35 goals)

Key Players: You see that line above where it says Natalie Olson scored 35 goals? Yeah she did that in 17 games and that’s not even accounting for the assists she provided, she’s been absolutely unstoppable (add in the three she scored in the KSC and it’s not impossible she gets to 50 by the end of the WNL)... shout outs also to the ever-reliable Zoe Barrott and the undershadowed Hannah Pilley who herself scored 16 times

Notable Youngster: Farina Anchico, a Colombian-Kiwi forward, worked her way into the starting eleven for the Diamonds on the back of some fine attacking performances that she’ll now be aiming to bring into the National League

18 games played, 18 games won. 97 goals scored and only 6 conceded. Wellington United had a perfect Central League campaign with the only stumble being their cup exit against the Nix U20s. Aside from that they’ve blitzed all challengers, thus the question now is: Can they translate that form into a National League title challenge? Looking at the league, it’s easy to assume the Auckland clubs will dominate it again but Southern United do have prior form and Wellington United certainly have a squad that’s capable. But just to make sure, they’ve amplified their case with a trio of tremendous signings: Blair Currie, Amelia Abbott, and Maggie Jenkins. All three were part of the U17 World Cup bronze medalists from 2018. Currie’s been playing in America around her university studies. Abbott played a bit for the Wellington Phoenix last season, not really getting much of a chance, then excelled after joining Waterside Karori. And Jenkins was brilliant playing in Turkey for ALG Spor – surely putting her back on the radar for Football Ferns consideration. Add them to a squad that already had Olson, Barrott, Pilley, American import Summer Laskey, Lara Smith, Hannah Cooper, Jemma Robertson, et cetera... that’s a team that is built to conitnue winning.

Petone

Coach: Ryan McGlinchey

League: Third in Central League

Kate Sheppard Cup: Lost 3-1 to Wellington United in Round 2

Top Scorer: Pepi Olliver-Bell (19 goals)

Key Players: Olliver-Bell is only 21yo but she’s been scoring goals in the National League for years and Petone are going to need plenty more of those to keep up, although the strength of this team is its defence, led by Caelin Patterson, which conceded fewer than a goal per game in the WCL

Notable Youngster: Phoebe Gray, Lucy Trenberth, and Jessica Owens-Blackmore are three Petone prospects who fit that bill so take your pick and see what they get up to

Petone were the unlucky outsiders in both previous years that Central League clubs gained entry to the WNL, finishing behind Wellington United and Waterside Karori to miss the cut and having to loan players across to those teams if they wanted to play in the Nats. But not this year. Taking advantage of a poor start by Karori and then just doing enough to hold them off down the stretch (Petone finished one point above the Wharfies), Petone are now National League bound, matching the men’s team who qualified in 2023. Captain Caelin Patterson said it was “two, three years in the making” and she’s not wrong. One of the funky things about this squad is how many ex-WeeNixers they’ve gathered up: Marie Green, Nova Hill, Kyra Elder, and Aoife Gallagher-Forbes all played Nats for the Phoenix in 2024 (albeit AGF was an emergency goalie rather than an academy member). That first season in the National League is usually a brutal one so don’t expect too much but Petone have been building towards this. They’re ready.

Wellington Phoenix Reserves

Coach: Callum Holmes

League: The U20s were a pretty respectable seventh in the Capital Development Boy’s U15s League while the U18s finished second in the Women’s Central League

Kate Sheppard Cup: Lost 4-1 to Auckland United in the Final

Top Scorer: Isla Cleall-Harding & Lily Brazendale for the U20s (5 goals), Katie Pugh for the U18s (13 goals)

Key Players: Whichever A-League players drop down for game time, they’ll be the stars – Ella McMillan, Daisy Brazendale, Manaia Elliott, and Ela Jerez were all involved in the KS Cup final – and beyond them Mackenzie Greene, Alyssha Eglinton, Grace Bartlett, and Lily Brazendale are a few who’ve been standing out from the crowd

Notable Youngster: Katie Pugh is one of the top striker prospects in the country, midfielders Natalie Young and Sienna Candy are regulars for the U20s having both only just turned 17yo in the last few months, and 18yo forward Katie Chellenbron will be a curious one to track after the NZ U17s international recently moved to Aotearoa having grown up in England

In two seasons of National League football, the WeeNix Women have only won three games and two of those wins were against Central. They finished eighth in 2023 and ninth in 2024. That’s not very good... and yet the U20s have made the semi-final (2024) and final (2025) of the Kate Sheppard Cup in their only two entries (eliminated by champs Auckland United on both occasions) while their U18s just had a magnificent debut campaign in the Women’s Central League finishing second and only conceding 13 goals in 18 games (seven of which came in one game against Waterside Karori with a rotated end-of-season squad in use). They’ve got the experience now. They’re used to the demands of National League. It’ll be interesting to see if this year they’re able to turn it up a little higher. One issue that could prevent that is the NZ U19s being away in Tahiti at the moment hence it’ll be a weakened squad for the first week or two, including coach Callum Holmes who also helms that side.

Canterbury United

Coach: Shane Verma

League: N/A

Kate Sheppard Cup: N/A

Top Scorer: N/A

Key Players: In a squad that looks even more youthful than last year, reliable veterans like Kate Loye in the midfield and South Island League top scorer Britney-Lee Nicholson become more valuable than ever

Notable Youngster: Darsha Keogan is a very smooth central midfielder who has been around this team for a couple of years and will probably emerge as a first eleven player in 2025, while Anya Stephan has been awesome on the wing for Cashy Tech and should be similarly influential

Once the dynastic force of this competition, the past few years haven’t been very kind to Canterbury United (partly because the Wellington Phoenix keeps snapping up their best talent – a trend that’s continued with Cantabrian Amber De Wit setting up the WeeNix goal that knocked Christchurch’s Cashmere Technical out of the Kate Sheppard Cup semis a few weeks back). This year could come with similar struggles judging by a very fresh-looking squad that’s been selected which hasn’t been boosted by the presences of Nicola Dominikovich and Charlotte Mortlock like it was last year. Those two have been playing NPL with Northern Tigers, each scoring plenty of goals, but weren’t in the published squad list. What the Pride do have is a heavy chunk of Coastal Spirit and Cashmere Tech players (those two clubs have supplied 17/22 players) so there will be plenty of existing combinations to construct around. There’ll also be plenty of opportunity for players like Darsha Keogan, Lily Fisher, Sara Mann, Anya Stephan, Ruby Luxton and others to show the nation what they’re capable of. Just don’t expect an instant return to the glory days here.

Southern United

Coach: Kris Ridley

League: N/A

Kate Sheppard Cup: N/A

Top Scorer: N/A

Key Players: Hannah Mackay-Wright is there to anchor the defence, Rose Morton is there to carry the midfield, and Amy Hislop is there to score the goals which means they’ll go alright

Notable Youngster: Charlotte Summers was in the NZ U16 squad recently, the only South Island based player in the selection, let’s hope she gets a bit of the ol’ National League spotlight as a reward

Kris Ridley actually stepped away from coaching this side after last season, wanting to avoid a conflict as he took over Dunedin City Royals. But then his Royals team were so good (winning their first 14 games in a row on the way to the South Island League championship and only losing their perfect record when they were beaten by a rampant Cashmere Tech side in the penultimate game) that he rediscovered his joy, reapplied for the job, and was rehired. As expected, Southern United have built their squad around that excellent DCR team along with two standouts from Otago University AFC (Georgia Nixon & Gracie Va’afusuaga), who also had a fantastic season finishing second and knocking DCR out of the Kate Sheppard Cup. Plus there are a few Roslyn Wakari folks in there too. Southern have also coaxed Australian Georgia Keen back for a second stint and signed two USA college players: Mackenzie Rastatter and Emma Vane. More wonderful recruitment from the Southerners, as has been a feature of their success in the last couple seasons (including making the final in 2023). That success has filtered down to club level because the South Island League had been won by Christchurch clubs in all four years until this one where the top two finishers were both from Dunedin. No need for the formula to change. Southern should be full of confidence that they can keep it going.

The Niche Cache is out here battling away for kiwi sports so if you appreciate the mahi then please help us out on Patreon, Substack, or Buy Me A Coffee

Also whack an ad, share the articles around, and let all your mates know about us