Aotearoa Domestic Football Roundup – March 23
Women’s NRFL Premiership
Friday night at Fred Taylor Park marked the start of the 2026 football season in New Zealand, as defending National League champs Auckland United were hosted by defending NRFL Premiership champs West Coast Rangers. Superb fixture to get the ball rolling... and it took all of two minutes before our first dose of drama when WCR’s Mia Ferrentino hit a clearance into the arm of teammate Kenzie Longmuir to concede a penalty out of nothing. Maggie Jenkins converted from the spot, a debut goal for AUFC’s most significant offseason addition.
There have been lots of changes for both teams off the back of successful years. West Coast Rangers have added former NZ Age-grader Chloe Bellamy to their midfield (a former WCR youngster who has also player National League for Canterbury and most recently spent a year in England where she was aligned with Worcester City). That on top of a few new international additions, most notably Americans Mia Ferrentino and Saige Thor. Getting Kenzie Longmuir back from her American university is another quality deal with KL likely to be going to the U20 World Cup later in the calendar.
Auckland United’s biggest change was seeing coach Ben Bate step aside (he’s ended up taking an academy manager role at Western Springs, curiously) following three years in which he helped turn this team into the nation’s reigning dynasty with a trophy cabinet of: 2 OFC Champions Leagues, 2 Lotto NRFL Premierships, 3 National Leagues, and 2 Kate Sheppard Cups. But whereas he took most of his old team with him when he previously went from Northern Rovers to Auckland United, AUFC have retained most of their familiar faces.
On top of that, they’ve brought in a new collection of overseas options from USA and Japan (Halle Johnson, Sasha Adamson, Rena Okutsu, and Hilary Halpin) as well as getting Shav Edwards on board full-time after her National League stint last year (twin sister of 1-cap Football Ferns goalkeeper Bri Edwards) and a very exciting addition of former NZ U20s midfielder Aniela Jensen who has finished up her USA college career. Olivia Ingham has wriggled out of the last couple months of her Wellington Phoenix contract (having only made one ALW appearance this season) to join the cause, although she didn’t play in game one. And, yes, they also scooped up the unanimous 2025 National League MVP Maggie Jenkins. Jo Dawkins and Craig McGinlay have assumed the co-coaching gig, if you were wondering.
Back to the game itself and after Jenkins got it going from the penalty spot, Emily Lyon levelled up for WCR with an Olimpico direct from a corner after 34 minutes. However Auckland United ended up winning it thanks to Jenkins again, hunting onto a rebound on 78’ to flip home her second of the evening for a 2-1 result. Auckland United take first blood in one of the nation’s best active rivalries.
That game was on Friday. The other three were on Sunday... where we had two chunky margins and one narrow upset. The upset was at Seddon Fields where Western Springs hosted Melville United. Springs were a National League side last year although once they got there they relied a lot on loan players Maddi Ollington and Britney Cunningham-Lee - neither of whom have stuck around permanently (Ollington’s joined Eastern Suburbs instead while BCL has presumably returned to Franklin in the second tier). But it wasn’t only them... the eleven they rolled out against promoted Melville United was unrecognisable from that National League group with the exception of impressive young midfielder Sienna Makwana. They do have one of the deepest and strongest youth sections in the entire country so they can handle that better than most. Daphne Ranta and Isla Robson are two brilliant prospects that they’ve picked up from outside the club. Katie Duncan has stuck around as head coach... and it’s only week one so their more experienced players could easily turn up again down the line. But they’re going to have their work cut out making the top four if they don’t have reinforcements on the way.
Particularly after they fell 1-0 at home against Melville. In fairness, that Melville team has something special going on. They strolled to promotion winning 19 of their 21 games in the Championship (71 goals scored, 19 conceded) despite having a really young and largely homegrown squad. What this club is doing in the development space is pretty crazy, getting regular names in NZ age grade squads on both sides (their men’s team were also promoted to the Northern League last year). Laura Bennett, Emma Meadows, Miche Cloete, and Mia Humphrey are among such names over the last two years. If you go back a little further then Manaia Elliott, Ella McMillan, and Charlotte Eagle are others who’ve felt the Melville magic. Laura Bennett scored 24 goals during that promotion quest and still found time to play all three games for NZ at the U17 World Cup. Did she score the goal here? No idea because NZF have changed the Match Centre thingamajig and the new one is completely useless. All it says is that Melville scored their goal on 73’ and neither club has anything to add from their social media output. These roundups aren’t going to be much use if they don’t get that sorted... hopefully it’s just an initial hiccup.
Moving on, there was a hefty 6-0 win for Fencibles against Tauranga Moana to send Fencies to the top of the ladder after the opening week. Fencibles narrowly missed out on top four last time and might fancy this year’s chances after seeing how Western Springs went. Tauranga struggled in 2025 with a very inexperienced squad although they were able to better Hibiscus Coast to avoid relegation. Not sure they’ll be able to repeat that without improvements given that Melville are expected to be much more competitive than the club they replaced. This was not a fortuitous beginning for Tauranga either.
Not sure about the timings of the goals but Fencies got the job done emphatically thanks to a hat-trick from Mihiro Kisu (another Japanese import doing huge things in the NRFL) with Rosie Missen, Tineke de Jong, and Freya Harris scoring the other goals. TDJ is a Cook Islands senior international. Missen’s played professionally for West Ham and has been a key leader for this squad for the past couple seasons, great to see her back. Some top notch prospects in this team too. Eden Chayntor, Grace Eng, and Charlize Kerr were all part of Auckland FC’s U17 Invitational Squad last September. Millee Loxton went to the U17 World Cup in 2024. Tauranga have some similarly pedigreed talent (albeit without nearly as much veteran help) but they didn’t provide their line-up and the Match Centre is of no assistance so maybe next week we’ll learn more about their squad.
Eastern Suburbs smoked Ellerslie 5-1 away. Incredibly, the Lilywhites were 1-0 down at half-time after Yuni Kwon scored on debut for the Ponies, breaking the offside trap on 39’ and curling in a wicked lefty finish for a revamped Ellerslie side with four starting debutants and a few more off the bench (including Kitty Jacob and Cleo Carmichael poached from Western Springs and Miya Stott who has joined after being one of Hibiscus Coast’s bright lights during their relegation). And that’s just the start of it because according to their match programme we can also expect to see Rina Hirano and Arisa Takeda for the Ponies this year. Western Springs legends who would both be starting eleven players if you were to pick a National League All Star team from the past five years. They didn’t play here though. Hence they were unable to help as Anna McPhie squeezed in an equaliser two minutes into the second half and then Eastern Subs ran rampant with four goals in the last twenty minutes.
This Lilywhites squad is seriously good. With the additions they’ve made, they should be backing themselves to challenge West Coast Rangers and Auckland United for the title. The Lilywhites have brought back goalkeeper Nikki Whyte and striker Juliette Lucas from stints in the USA. They’ve retained American midfielder TJ Anderson who joined midseason. Nicole Mettam and Kenya Brooke and Yuki Nishizono and Tayla O’Brien and Sammi Tawharu and Rebekah van Dort... they’re all still around. That alone gives them an intimidating squad. But on top of that, they’ve added American import Erika Skindlov, Nelson midfielder (via Western Springs) Anna McPhie, Hamilton forward (via Ellerslie/Western Springs) and National League MVP candidate Maddi Ollington, and Wellington United centre-back superstar Zoe Barrott (though she didn’t play this game). Unbelievable recruitment work. Tawharu (70’), Lucas (80’), Skindlov (85’), and Stacey Martin (87’) got the goals to complete the turnaround against Ellerslie.
Men’s Northern League
Not all of the divisions got stared this week. The two Central Leagues don’t start until next week while the Women’s South Island League is still another month away. But the Northern League returned at full force with a couple of midday kickoffs on Saturday and one of those was Tauranga City vs East Coast Bays in a duel to see which of these awesome youth systems has been more ravaged by Auckland FC. Over the past 18 months, Tauranga have lost Jonty Bidois and Van Fitzharris to the AFC set-up. ECB only contributed Nick Gaze in year one but the Black Knights have returned for James Elder and Damion Kim more recently. Key players for both although Tauranga City have been able to retain last year’s top scorer Morgan Wellsbury which is big business for them. Some handy additions for Bays too: Jackson Jarvie (Eastern Suburbs), Ihaia Delaney (Western Suburbs), Harry Mason (Napier City), and Orlando Thorpe (Auckland City) among them. Alas, this game was covered in opening round rust and ended 0-0 so we’ll park it and move on.
The other early kickoff was a doozy between Western Springs (reigning Northern League champs) and Auckland City (reigning National League champs). Funnily enough, that’s the same dynamic as we got in the women’s league when WCR played AUFC. Auckland City have hired Rudy Mozr (former Manukau and Bay Olympic coach) to replace Paul Posa who opted against extending his one-year interim stay. ACFC have announced several new additions with the funkiest of those being Nathan Rostron, a multi-faceted talent formerly of Birkenhead and originally from Tauranga. The Navy Blues are missing a few blokes from last year: Christian Gray, Haris Zeb, and David Yoo are playing Pro League with SIU; Myer Bevan’s playing pro in Cambodia; Joe Lee and Jerson Lagos are doing the NPL thing in Aussie; no sign of Nikko Boxall either. Some of them might return later in the year, particularly those Pro League guys, but for now they’re doing fine following a 3-0 victory with goals coming courtesy of Angus Kilkolly 33′, Kieran Richards 38′, and Dylan Manickum 90+3′. Richards is another of their new additions, last seen at Birko and previously with the Phoenix Academy and Napier City.
Tough loss for Springs but to be fair to them it’s a massively overhauled squad. Oscar Mason, Aidan Carey, Reid Drake, Ry McLeod, and Daniel Normann have all ducked for the Pro League (again, that season only lasts another couple months so they could be back in due course). Wan Gatkek has gone to Aussie to play for Green Gully. Only five of their starters played National League for them last year. However they have picked up a nice slate of fresh imports alongside Connor Sykes (Auckland FC) and Rayan Tayeb (Auckland City) plus the Phoenix to Springs pipeline lives on with NZ U20s rep Ryan Watson joining Ben Wallace for the Swans. Looks like Auckland United’s old import keeper Kai McLean was on the bench too. This team might click given more time together. They’ve got plenty of talent and a very good coach. But they were beaten relatively comfortably in week one.
Fencibles had a brilliant weekend. Already covered what their women’s team got up to and the blokes pre-empted that by also pocketing a clean sheet victory, winning 2-0 against Bay Olympic. Fencies have managed to scoop up a handful of ex-Manurewa players (Dylan Morris, Connor Probert, Ronaldo Munoz) for their ensuing efforts. Goals were scored by Kodie Nicol (48’) and Nikola Stoychev (52’)... and they did that despite being reduced to ten men midway through the first half after an awful challenge from Liam Wessels. Two goals in five mins early in the second got the job done regardless. Bay Olympic have coaxed back Jake Woolford from the AFC Reserves and Derek Tieku is back to supply more goals. Couldn’t do it here though.
Melville United were 1-0 up at home against Auckland United when the half-time whistle sounded. When the full-time one blew, it was 4-1 to Auckland United. We’ll call this the Lucca Lim derby after the Kiwi-Cambodian teenager rejoined Melville following a year with AUFC. It was Luis Hamblin who ripped a half-volley into the net after a ball over the top to spark up the home faithful (34’)... but from there it went Luke Flowerdew (52’), Shuto Kono (69’), Jedd White (90+1’), and Luke Flowerdew again (90+3’). AUFC have brought in Ben Sippola to replace Jose Figueira as head coach while Hideto Takahashi has retired to be an assistant coach (alongside player-assistant Ross Haviland). Cool to see Luke Flowerdew up and running with a double after graduating from the Wellington Phoenix Academy – he was highlighted as one of TNC’s top Nix prospects after last season. It never aligned for him with the A-League squad but he continues to show that he’s a goal scorer in any context. Jedd White is one of AUFC’s top emerging players and he wasted no time getting in on the action either (also setting up Flowerdew’s second after coming off the bench). The timing of those goals tells you this was a much closer game than the final result hints at.
There was a close win for Birkenhead United beating Eastern Suburbs 2-1 at Shepherds Park. Considering how many players they lost over the course of last year, coach Paul Hobson has done well to keep this team recognisable. Always helps when you can bring back a few old soldiers for the cause and Monty Patterson is about as big a signing as they could have made, returning after winning the Canadian Premier League last year. Shiv Nair and James Taylor are also back after spending 2025 in the Auckland FC system. On top of all that, Birko have picked up Josh Redfearn after the former Auckland United striker spent a few years over in the lower leagues of England and it was Redfearn who scored the winner off the bench (69’). This after Dino Botica (58’) had gotten Birko started and Tyler Lissette (62’) had briefly equalised. Pretty sure that’s the right order of scoring... but again the Match Centre isn’t much help…
Eastern Subs have named a pretty sweet squad with Seth Karunaratne joining his brother Noah up in the 09 while Seo Ram Lee and Keen Mandizvizda are great additions. Lots of Latin flair as well with the likes of Eber Ramirez, Tino Contratti, Roberto Alarcon, Hector Echague, and Lucas Abarca all teaming up (Ramirez and Echague were there last year so they’re the networkers). Their week one line-up was missing a lot of their regulars with no Aaryan Raj or Jake Mechell or Kelvin Kalua or Adam Thomas, giving them room to improve in a hurry despite this first-up defeat.
Finally, Auckland FC’s reshaped their Reserve team with Rory Fallon now in charge and it was one of those new fellas who proved decisive in a 2-1 victory away against promoted Manukau United. The Ressies had fallen behind inside of ten minutes only for Dejaun Naidoo to tie things up heading into the break. Then James Elder nodded this one home and that was that...
A win on the board at the first attempt for AFC despite having five debutants in the starting line-up and a couple more on the bench. As you’d expect for an academy team, they’ve shuffled some old guys out and shuffled some new guys in from one year to the next. All of their new additions have come via their Talent Development Programme working with the other Northern League clubs, so say g’day to: Damion Kim (East Coast Bays), Michael Wong (Auckland United), Will Gross (Northland FC), James Wenceslao (Auckland United), Riley Dalziell (Eastern Suburbs), Sean Kane (Eastern Suburbs), and Harley Hill (Hamilton Wanderers). Wong, Kim, Wenceslao, H.Hill, and Kane all represented AFC in their U17 Invitational games against the Wellington Phoenix U17s back in October. Wong, Kim, and Kane were part of the NZ U17 World Cup squad last year alongside current AFC amigos Luka Vicelich, Van Fitzharris, Nathan Martin, Evan Masamba, and Ben Perez Baldoni. Manukau Utd have named a wider squad but starting eleven stuff isn’t available yet. Apologies to whoever scored their goal, you know who you are but nobody else does because it hasn’t been published anywhere.
Men’s Southern League
Now we travel all the way down south where Christchurch United are competing on multiple fronts with a chunk of their squad away at the Pro League with their South Island United affiliate. It could be a tricky start to the domestic campaign while they’re away... as we saw with a 1-0 loss to Dunedin City Royals in round one. From last year’s team, Steven van Dijk, Riley Grover, Josh Rogerson, Ollie van Rijssel, and Charlie Beale are all with SIU for the time being (not to mention the rapid rise of Jago Godden who is now starting games professionally in the Irish top division with Drogheda)... and other than the heartily dependable Joel Stevens and Ben Stroud they mostly filled the gaps with youngsters for coach Albert Riera’s first league game in charge (they lost the Steve Sumner Shield 2-0 to Cashmere Tech a couple weeks ago in Riera’s first official game).
The wild thing here was that DCR played the last hour with ten men and a makeshift goalkeeper. Kazik Swain nodded the Royals ahead from a corner kick in the 25th minute but then immediately from the kickoff, the Rams went long and DCR goalie Alex Boomer came out and grabbed the ball... except he came out too far. Handball outside the box and he was sent off. To make matters worse they didn’t have a keeper on their bench so substitute Jacob Drumm was chucked out there to do his best and what do ya know he ended up with a clean sheet in a winning performance. Wobbly old start for Christchurch United but how about the yarns from Dunedin City Royals?
Northern AFC had a triumphant afternoon in front of their home crowd having been promoted to the Southern League. They won 3-0 against Nomads with Isaac Simons (7’) getting the party started by scoring early before Sam Cosgrove (no, not that one) made it double very soon afterwards. Alex Dale wrapped up the points with a bow on top after 80 mins. Sounded like an awesome atmosphere at the Logan Park turf with the chanting and the air-horns. Great stuff. Bring the passion to domestic footy.
No stress for Cashmere Technical. They hosted Selwyn United and emerged from that with a 5-1 result in their favour. Very familiar Cashy Tech squad although they have added Nick Murphy (a former Christchurch Utd youth player who had two years with the Phoenix Academy and started all three games for Aotearoa at the 2023 U17 World Cup) and they’ve also added Joe Hoole (an absolute workhorse in midfield who also came up with Chch Utd before excelling at Coastal Spirit). Both teams hit the post within the first dozen minutes before Garbhan Couglan (28’) opened the scoring from the penalty spot for CT and then Hoole doubled that on 31’. Blake Lang closed it up with a belter from outside the box on 74’... only for Tech to finish with a flurry as Coughlan scored a second penalty (76’), followed by an own goal from a long throw (77’), and then Edward Belingher wrapped it up after ninety.
Wānaka went down 4-1 at home to Ferrymead Bays and it wasn’t ever close. Liam Stanton gave Bays the lead after six minutes. Omar Cameron made it 2-0 after 20 mins (both those goals coming via long throws). It was 3-0 after 32 minutes when Jacob Killick scored. Cameron got his second on 52’ to make it foursies... at least Samba Will was able to give Wānaka something to cling to from the penalty spot. Lots of yellow cards in this one with at least nine of them flashing out of the ref’s pocket.
Last but not least, defending champs Coastal Spirit travelled north to Nelson Suburbs, a notoriously difficult place to win, and escaped with a 1-0 victory. Considering how they they’d stumbled to the line in the National League phase and with a few new faces in the squad this year (Leonardo Uribe and Reon Werehiko are nice additions), with Joe Hoole having gapped it across town to Cashmere, that’s a fantastic opening round result. The winning goal was headed in back post by 40yo Englishman Danny Boys still showing the rest of them how it’s done. That goal came after seven minutes and Coastal maintained that lead the entire way from there. Seems blatantly clear that Cashmere Tech are the favourites to win the Southern League this year (after only finishing third last time) but nobody gave Coastal a prayer last time and look what happened. This lot know how to grind it out.
Top Division Clubs For 2026
(Defending Champs in Bold, Promoted Teams in Italics)
Men’s Northern League:
Auckland City, Auckland United, Auckland FC Reserves, Birkenhead United, East Coast Bays, Eastern Suburbs, Fencibles, Manukau United, Bay Olympic, Melville United, Western Springs, Tauranga City
Women’s NRFL Premiership:
Auckland United, Eastern Suburbs, Ellerslie, Fencibles United, Melville United, Tauranga Moana, West Coast Rangers, Western Springs
Men’s Central League (starts on 28 March):
Island Bay United, Miramar Rangers, Napier City Rovers, Petone, Upper Hutt City, Waterside Karori, Wellington Olympic, Wellington Phoenix Reserves, Western Suburbs, FC Western
Women’s Central League (starts on 28 March):
Miramar Rangers, Palmerston North Marist, Palmerston North United, Petone, Seatoun, Taradale, Victoria University, Waterside Karori, Wellington Phoenix U18s, Wellington United
Men’s Southern League:
Cashmere Technical, Christchurch United, Coastal Spirit, Dunedin City Royals, Ferrymead Bays, Nelson Suburbs, Nomads United, Northern AFC, Selwyn United, Wānaka
Women’s South Island League (starts on 25 April):
Cashmere Technical, Coastal Spirit, Dunedin City Royals, Nelson Suburbs, NW United, Otago University, Roslyn Wakari, Universities of Canterbury
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