Men’s Central League

Everybody say kia ora to the Men’s & Women’s Central Leagues, which got underway this week. Might as well lead off with them and might as well start with the (perennial) defending champions, Wellington Olympic, who were away against rivals Miramar Rangers at David Farrington Park on Saturday. New coaches for both sides. Ekow Quainoo has deservedly gotten the Olympic gig after Paul Ifill stepped aside. Jamie O’Connor has replaced Kale Herbert for Miramar.

In terms of the squads, Miramar look extremely similar to what we saw in National League. Obviously Owen Smith is away playing Pro League in Vanuatu, and they’ve picked up Liam Shearer from Petone (where O’Connor used to coach), but other than that it’s all very recognisable. As opposed to Wellington Olympic who look like they’ve stocked up for the winter. They’ve picked up Seb Barton-Ginger from Wests, following a very strong National League (at 21yo, he’s already played for Phoenix Reserves, Miramar, Western Suburbs, and now Olympic... ticking off all the big dogs in the capital). Kailan Gould and Tam Dimairo are back after a couple years away. American import Devin Slingsby has moved down to join the Greeks after an excellent spell with Birkenhead in 2025. Getting Ben Campbell from Dunedin City Royals is a funky one. And also Joshua Zatorski, previously of Petone and North Wellington.

They all started this game... while on the bench the Greeks had Kieran McMinn (a strength and conditioning coach for the Phoenix ALW team and also the scorer of 18 goals last season with Petone) and Luke Stoupe (another Petone fella who had been an U20s loan player for Olympic in the Nats – scoring a goal and providing an assist in the grand final to make a name for himself) to fill out the striker shed with Hamish Watson probably out for the whole season after a serious knee injury late last year. Hayden Aish is also back after finishing up at Jacksonville University – originally a West Aucklander though also played a bit for Otago Uni and Dunedin City. Plus they’ve announced midfielder Noah Tipene-Clegg from Wests, though he didn’t play in week one. Don’t worry because familiar bros like Scott Basalaj, Ben Mata, and Jack-Henry Sinclair remain there too.

It took two minutes for Wellington Olympic to score their first goal. Sinclair whipped a free kick onto the crossbar. Mata did a diving header onto the rebound. Somebody else got a flick-on within the crowd... and it might have actually been an own goal in the end. Great start for the Greeks, however they weren’t able to double that lead while they were on top and Miramar flipped the script in the second stanza when Sam Gates nodded home at the back post from a curling free kick, five mins into the half. Rangers also failed to add a second during their ascendency thus despite a hectic finish it ended 1-1 with the points shared.

Island Bay United went a wee bit crazy in winning 4-0 against Waterside Karori. Not a bad start for a team that only avoided relegation by one point last year. Their new Canadian import, Abel Nesibu, got them started (5’) followed by goals for Brendan McMullen (31’, 58’) and Tsar Mitchener (88’). There was also a fascinating result across town at Petone Memorial Park where Sam Pickering has been elevated to the head coaching role at Petone but he got his reign underway with a 2-0 loss against Upper Hutt City (also with a new coach, Toby Wilton, after Rory Fallon took up the AFC Reserves gig). Goals for Riley Allison (48’) and Rio Winkworth (80’) did the deed for UHC. Looks like a fair bit of player turnover for both squads, as often happens after a coaching change. Befitting for Petone Football Club, they had Sam Pickering as coach and Oliver Pickering as captain. Alfie Crookston has turned up there after leaving the Phoenix Academy. Speaking of which, Petone’s Blake Chandler recently got announced as the new Women’s U16s coach for the Nix. The trick for them will undoubtedly be replacing all of McMinn’s goals (whilst also losing dudes like Stoupe and Shearer who might have helped that cause). UHC’s most interesting addition is probably Joe Cornille, another ex-Nixer, who played last year for Island Bay.

Then on Sunday there was a lowkey crucial meeting between Napier City Rovers and Western Suburbs – two teams that always seem to be neck and neck... and those fine margins are going to matter even more this year with National League entry for the revamped 2026 winter season at stake. There’s a formula in play that balances weighted results from the last few seasons so Wellington Olympic will certainly be there and Miramar Rangers are at short odds to join them as long as they bring the goods this year. Hence there may only be room for one out of NCR and Wests. And... they drew 0-0. Nothing between them.

As usual, NCR have made a splash with their international signings with forwards Leo Brown and Jacob Fenton and winger Callum Cooke added to a recognisable core... along with Danish goalkeeper Will Tønning who was so good for them in 2024. Brother just couldn’t get enough of it. Plus they’ve re-acquired Sam Lack after a short spell with the AFC Reserves. Wests are also very good at scouting foreign talent so say g’day to Gavin Wigg and Kyle Carr alongside their own returning keeper Quillan Roberts. Rovers get them from the English lower/non leagues, Wests get them from the American/Canadian lower leagues. Tareq Morgan is an interesting youngster who got a start here for Wests.

And if you were wanting to see what the Wellington Phoenix Reserves look like, or just to check out FC Western of New Plymouth on their first game in the Central League following promotion... wait until next week. That game got postponed the day prior. Didn’t say why, only that it’ll be rescheduled for later in the season. It was supposed to be a WeeNix home game.

Women’s Central League

Happier stuff for Petone in the Women’s Central League where they won 2-0 against Miramar Rangers thanks to goals from Emmy Lantz (1’) and Ellie Johnson (61’). The Match Centre stuff is much better this week but these things are never perfect so when you see a goal scored in the opening minute you wonder if that was for real or if someone just typed the wrong thing... fortunately this was a Petone home game and they do a wonderful job at streaming their matches so it can be categorically stated that Lantz scored her goal, pouncing on a bad touch at the back, after 68 seconds. Technically second minute but close enough. The other goal came after a goalkeeping fumble... self-inflicted wounds from Miramar but Petone are the kinda team that’ll wait for those and then capitalise.

We’ll get to Wellington United in a sec, suffice to say their squad has changed a fair bit, and there’s always turnover with the Phoenix Academy given the age restrictions. Based on the second half of last season we should expect Waterside Karori to be back challenging for the title again, especially if the Diamonds aren’t what they previously were, but don’t discount Petone either. They’ve got a great defence (another clean sheet here) and have been able to keep a pretty consistent crew over the last few years, growing steadily into their National League qualification last year. Miramar are more of an unknown quantity after only winning three games last year. New season means a clean slate though.

Actually, we won’t get to Wellington United because they didn’t have a game this week. But we do know that Nat Olson and Summer Laskey have gone to Australia, Maggie Jenkins to Auckland United, Zoe Barrott to Eastern Suburbs, Blair Currie to Finland, and Sarah Alder was talking about retiring. Amelia Abbott’s gone back to Waterside after being a guest player for the National League. The Diamonds won 18/18 in Central League last year and then only barely missed out on the NL grand final. But they won’t be the same in 2026, opening the door for a more competitive Women’s Central League.

Waterside Karori are the team to watch out for there. Last year was a dip for them, although they did find form in the second half of the term. A 5-1 win against the Nix U18s in the Kelly Cup earlier in the month ought to have put the league on notice in case anyone was still underrating them. The Wharfies were away to promoted Seatoun in week one... and sure enough they did what they needed to do with a 5-0 win. Goals courtesy of Sophie Burchfield (1’), Renee Bacon (14’), Amelia Abbott (27’), Jessica Woodside (76’), and Bacon again (89’). Renee Bacon will fancy that golden boot trophy after her 2025 prolifics were denied by Nat Olson scoring an insane 35 times for Wellington United. Burchfield is an American import, a winger recruited out of Western Carolina University.

The other game in week one was Palmerston North United vs Wellington Phoenix U18s. Remember it’s the third team for the Nix who play in the Central League, while their Reserves play Kate Sheppard Cup and National League. The U18s did awesome in the Central League last year at the first attempt – finishing second with 14 wins from 18 games, conceding just 15 times. The WeeNix do occasionally use the road trips for rotational purposes but based on the team they selected here it would seem that many of last year’s lot have deservedly moved up into reserve team footy. Four of their starters were making their Central League debuts for the club: Isabella Ismail-Sanders, Evie Baird, Florence George, and Victoria George (plus a couple more off the bench). Yet that didn’t stop them from winning 2-0 thanks to goals from Eliza Vincent (38’) and Jada Szeto (89’). Vincent, Amelia McClintock, and Olivia Goodwin are the only ones in this matchday squad who got National League minutes last year...

Decent squad for Palmy United with several of them having gotten National League experience with Central last season. That includes Caitlin Byrne, who linked up with Central on loan from Tauranga Moana and has decided to stick around in Palmerston North. Fantastic addition for them – she was arguably Central’s best player in that campaign. There’s a full run of fixtures next week so along with Wellington United we’ll also get to catch up with Victoria University, Palmerston North Marist, and Taradale who have all had delayed starts to the new season.

Men’s Northern League

There were some great games this week and one of the best saw Auckland United welcome Auckland FC Reserves to Keith Hay Park. The AFC Ressies were boosted by the lack of any Pro League stuff, meaning that Isa Prins and Aston Burns were let loose on the wings. Burns also played last week off the bench but for Prins this was a Northern League debut (having already completed the Central League). No Luka Vicelich this time – AFC have three teams and he’s played for all of them within the five weeks – so Evan Masamba got the gig at centre-back instead. He was one of three Auckland United juniors in this AFC squad alongside James Wenceslao and Michael Wong.

Half-time of this one and it was Auckland FC barging their way towards glory having taken a 3-0 lead with two brilliant Isa Prins goals complemented by Adama Coulibaly’s first goal for the club. Then the pendulum reached its axis and dipped back the other way. This was a very fresh backline for AFC with three of their back four being new additions, plus they had their youngest goalie in action (18yo Liam Hill). That goes a long way towards explaining how this game ended up being a 3-3 draw. First it was a blind pass by Masamba that allowed Matias Nunez to pull one back shortly after the break. Nunez then curled one in directly from a corner kick. Hill probably shoulda had it but shout out to 16yo Nunez who played alongside a lot of these AFC dudes not only for the NZ U16s last year... but also for Auckland FC’s U17 invitational games. He’s one of the most exciting attacking prospects in the country and very likely a future Auckland FC lad. Scored a brace against them here. Then American import Jack Beer whipped in the equaliser from a wide free kick... wicked curl and dip and this time Hill was beaten from a narrow angle on the opposite side.

Thing is, we were only 62 minutes deep at that stage so while AFC will have to learn some rapid lessons from how they threw that lead away... they also scrapped hard to preserve a point on the road against a good team. In fact they almost won it when Dejaun Naidoo’s pace on the break set up Ben Perez Baldoni (both of them subs) only for Ine Maro to make the best of his bunch of very good saves. Maro is a 21yo Cook Islander who has spent some time in the lower tiers of Holland and Germany (and also Christchurch United) already in his career. Big gloves to fill taking over for Kai McLean but so far so good. 3-3 final score.

Auckland City fell short in the Gridlock Derby, beaten 1-0 at Kiwitea Street by Eastern Suburbs. Noah Karunaratne wore the armband for Suburbs and he scored the decisive goal after 16 minutes by whacking in a wonderful finish off the post after avoiding the City centre-backs running onto a long ball. In a game of very few chances, that was all it took. Suburbs frustrated their hosts and City were missing a bit of magic. Very well managed by the Lilywhites with that lead.

Contrasting results for the two promoted teams. Melville United went to Tauranga City and returned with a 4-1 win. Luis Hamblin scored a banger in a 4-1 loss to AUFC last time and he got things started here with two pretty simple tap-ins (3’, 21’) before Lucca Lim made it 3-0 on 29’. Campbell Higgins headed in from a free kick on 57’ to offer some sort of lifeline but Robbie McNicholas (89’) took a pair of scissors to that lifeline near the end. At the other end of the scale, Manukau United were whupped 4-0 by Fencibles. Goals for Dastgeer Lai-Sai (24’), Yoichi Kawachi (53’), Ryan Clarke (71’), and Finn Wessels (88’). Manukau were reduced to ten men for the last half hour after Reuben-Louis Visser got his second yellow. Believe it or not, that result sends Fencies to the top of the table as the only team in the Northern League to have won both games – beating Bay Olympic (2-0) and Manukau Utd (4-0) without conceding a goal. There’s a Friday/Monday double gameweek coming up in this division for Easter Weekend so the table will start to take more shape after that.

Bay Olympic 3-4 Western Springs was a wild one. Springs went up 2-0 before the game had barely started after Jason Alama scrambled one in from a corner and then Connor Sykes charged down a keeper clearance for the second. There were only seven minutes gone at that point. Fast forward to the hour and what do ya know: Bay Olympic were leading 3-2! Derek Tieku jumped on a defensive mistake before Jake Woolford scored a brace. Alas, that lead lasted as long as it took Springs to kick off, pump it long, get the ball back, send it over the top again, and for Ryan Watson to send a defender sliding with a fake-out before slotting into the bottom corner. Then Matt Thomas won it for Western Springs with one of the last acts of the match. Bloody hell.

There was also a 2-2 draw between East Coast Bays and Birkenhead United that included some stoppage time shenanigans. Marius Zabarauskas put Bays ahead early (6’) but Birko turned it around in the second half with goals from Dino Botica and James Taylor. Centre-back Botica has managed to score in consecutive matches. Taylor is back at Birko after a spell with AFC Reserves. Those goals had Birko on the brink of a comeback win... only for Zabarauskas to level it back up, deeeeeep into injury time, flicking home from a corner kick. Shout out to the fine nation of Lithuania where Zaba hails from and spent his entire career until moving to East Coast Bays this year. He actually played one game for Lithuania U17s back in 2013 (they profiled him in ECB’s online match programme – he’s picking Portugal to win the World Cup).

Women’s NRFL Premiership

We’ve got problems at Western Springs. A mass of departures to other NRFL clubs has led to the Swans rolling out an extremely young squad with only a couple of returnees from Katie Duncan’s National League side a few months ago. They lost 1-0 at home to promoted Melville with 12 first-team debutants getting on the pitch last week. Not really what you expect from one of the biggest clubs in the country but alright, it is what it is. This week they faced Auckland United and if you’re going to select an unserious line-up against the queens of the nation then you’d better be prepared for something like this...

Springs did bring Fale'aka Bloomfield into the starting team so there’s another of last year’s crew returning (albeit one of the younger ones) but the situation was the same. Don’t have the ages of all of them but there were at least six teenagers in the starting eleven including Isla Robson and Isabelle White who are just 16 years of age. Compare that to an AUFC team with overseas imports and so much depth that they could afford to play Chloe Knott off the bench. It got ugly and it got ugly fast. Goals: Aniela Jensen 3’, Siobhan Edwards 8’, Piper O’Neil 18’, Jensen 33’, Edwards 46’, Maggie Jenkins 57’, Jenkins 63’, Olivia Ingham 65’ [p], Jenkins 66’, Jenkins 71’, Ava Pritchard 74’, Jenkins 81’, Pritchard 90’. That’s five goals for Maggie Jenkins after her double in week one (apparently one of these ones was an acrobatic volley). Two for Pritchard off the bench while another ex-Phoenix winger, Olivia Ingham, scored from the penalty spot on debut. Two in there also for former NZ U20s rep Aniela Jensen and NZ-eligible Shev Edwards.

To put this into context, the biggest win of the National League phase last season was Western Springs 12-0 Central Football. That Central side typically reflect a similar age demographic to what we’re talking about with this Springs regen squad (aka a bunch of prospects who aren’t yet ready for this level). This was an even bigger margin than that. Only Sienna Makwana and Aka Bloomfield played both games for WSAFC. Player turnover is common in domestic footy but the Swans have lost everyone... without signing a single new player of comparable quality. Absolutely shocking that a club of this calibre has gotten into this situation. But on the flipside, Auckland United continue to be amazing (and also ruthless) and they’re doing this after losing coach Ben Bate and a few key players from their latest WNL title run (Hannah Mitchell, Kiara Bercelli, Zoe Benson, Rene Wasi). With seven goals in two games, it seems the only way Maggie Jenkins is going to be denied the golden boot is if a professional club does the right thing and signs her up because she’s too good to be playing anywhere else. Cool to see Charley March and Piper O’Neill from last year’s U17 World Cup squad starting both of these games too.

By the way, down in the Championship division below, Birkenhead United have pulled off the coup of grabbing four of AUFC’s squadies to help them in their promotion attempts: Rene Wasi, Alexis Cook, Kate McConnell, and Greer Macintosh. Superb additions who were all there throughout the past three seasons of glory... not difficult to see how they pulled it since Wasi’s father, Maurie Wasi, is the new coach there. That’ll be a neat division to track with some very good players involved across those teams. And Birko may just be the team to beat, having gotten going with a 10-1 win over Onehunga Mangere in which Wasi, Cook (x2), and McConnell all scored on debut.

Moving back to the main stuff and the livestreamed game on the NRF YouTube this week was a doozy between Melville United and Fencibles United. Melville grabbed a 1-0 win over Western Springs last week to mark their entry to the top flight (Laura Bennett with the goal – number one of the long list of Melville players to watch)... but they faced a far sterner task against Fencies. 5-1 was the final score. Fencies got goals from Alexandrea Ape-Paia (5’), Tineke de Jong (25’), Morgan Day (42’), de Jong again (59’), and Mihiro Kisu (65’). TDJ’s first was a screamer from distance. Melville did at least grab a consolation goal from the penalty spot in added time via the boot of Laura Bennett to make it two in two for the NZ age grade standout. But her side was well beaten by a Fencibles team that, like their men, has won both games thus far. 11 goals scored and just one the other way. Fencies should be putting their hand up for top four... can they go higher than that? We’ll get a much better idea when they host Auckland United next round.

Right now, the most likely title challengers alongside Auckland United are West Coast Rangers and Eastern Suburbs. Rangers possess the value of consistency, having made huge improvements year on year for the last few seasons culminating in their NRFL title last year. Eastern Suburbs took longer to get to that level but for the second half of last season were capable of getting results against anyone and they’ve made some outstanding additions on top of that. These are two very legit teams... that cancelled each other out in a 0-0 draw. No bragging rights to be found. Rangers remain winless after two rounds of their title defence... but it’s all good because they play Western Springs next.

And then there was Tauranga Moana 1-2 Ellerslie. Marni Adams (41’) put the hosts ahead but Hannah Barclay (58’) levelled up for Ellerslie before the Ponies won it in stoppages thanks to Tatiana Mason. Tauranga have lost one of their best and brightest in Caitlin Byrne (to Palmerston North United) but they’ve still got 2025 U17 World Cup representative Lane Ririnui and it looks like they’re another club to have benefited from the Western Springs fire-sale with goalkeeper Amberley Hollis having made that switch. Not as much as Ellerslie have benefited with Kitty Jacob, Cleo Carmichael, and Arisa Takeda all playing this game (and Rina Hirano still to come). It was USA import Mason who made the difference here though. Three handy points for Ellerslie but a good performance from Tauranga to show they won’t be automatic relegation fodder.

Men’s Southern League

Down south, as we await the Women’s South Island League which is still a few weeks away, it’s already looking like Cashmere Technical might run away with the Men’s Southern League. They won big last week and they’ve won big this week, beating Nomads United 4-1 despite falling behind after 19 minutes when their keeper (Finnish import Joona Halla on debut) dropped a simple one to allow Flynn Holdem to bang in his first of presumably many this year. But yeah nah it didn’t last. Garbhan Coughlan drew them level before the break (39’) and then a double for Zander Edwards (48’, 67’) plus one for Fraser Angus (78’) made it comfortable in the end. Nine goals in two matches for Cashy Tech.

Helping Tech’s cause is that neither of their two expected challengers have done anything yet. Christchurch United were on track to win away at Selwyn United thanks to Oliver Grosso’s goal off the bench (79’), the ex-WeeNixer having made the move to CUFC, only for the Rams to concede a very late penalty which Selwyn’s captain Liam Coleman converted for a share of the points. 1-1 final score. At least CUFC are on the board now, having lost to Dunedin City in the previous round. Remember they’ve got a bunch of players away at the Pro League with South Island United so these early couple months will be tough for them.

And Coastal Spirit dropped points too. Or maybe gained one... depends how you want to look at it. They were away against Dunedin City Royals and did take the lead through a Weston Bell free kick, however DCR made it 1-1 at the break through Kazik Swain (who also scored last week, having joined from Bay Olympic up in Auckland). It remained 1-1 until the 69th minute when some tenacious work from Yuki Todoroki set up Elijah Gaeth to restore the lead for Coastal. Three mins later, Connor Neil stepped up from the penalty spot to make it 2-2 and, after Coastal hit the woodwork a couple of times, Royals went ahead in the 85th when Max Davidson pounced on the end of a long throw. But that wasn’t all. In a moment of heightened drama, Coastal won a late free kick that was cleared as far as goalkeeper Reon Werahiko who was hovering over halfway with all the DCR players back defending. He sent it back into the mixer and after a cheeky scramble it was turned home by Cotter for a 3-3 result. Four points from two games for DCR against the two National League qualifiers from last season... they might be a team to keep an eye on.

The other team to be wary of is Ferrymead Bays after they won 1-0 against Northern AFC thanks to a goal from Chris Murphy shortly after half-time. Bays had a big win over Wānaka in game one so that puts them alongside Cashmere Tech as the only clubs in the SL to be perfect through the first fortnight. Admittedly, those were games they were expected to win... but they still won them. Ferrymead weren’t that far off last season and it wouldn’t take an outrageous boost for them to push for National League qualification if Coastal and Chch Utd have indeed fallen off. Speaking of Wānaka, they rebounded nicely with an impressive 3-1 win over Nelson Suburbs. Lennon Whewell put Suburbs ahead on the road but goals for Stanley Blair and Wynn Skinner (2) flipped that around before half-time and that scoreline remained the rest of the way. That leaves Nelson Suburbs and Nomads as the two teams with zero points.

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