Okay, so… the All Whites beat Vanuatu 5-0. It was 5-0 at half-time. That is the good news. But this was no ordinary 5-0 win, in fact for large stretches New Zealand were kinda sorta… well, terrible. Yes, in a 5-0 win.

The point still holds from the first game’s reaction, it really doesn’t matter how they play so long as they win and this was a big win. It was also a sloppy performance that could just have easily been 8-0 as it could have been 5-3. Gotta love this Oceania Nations Cup, aye? You don’t get talking points like that in the Premier League.

Just the one change from the Fiji victory. In came the now fully fit Michael McGlinchey and out went Monty Patterson to the bench. Why exactly there was only one change despite nzfootball.co.nz running a thing earlier that day bragging about Hudson having a full strength team to deal with is pretty weird. Supposedly Boxall and Brockie weren’t in contention given they’d only just arrived in PNG but the lack of Kosta or Marco in the starting XI was bloody odd – especially since they were both fit enough to play big minutes off the bench. Odd, but we’ll probably see a slow passing of the torch through the tournament with some players eased in and others eased out to keep folks from burning out in the island conditions.

The story of the first quarter of an hour or so was Chris Wood. Once again the captain looked a step above all others… not that he ever could have missed his first goal. Four minutes in and Billy T chucked a deep throw in from the right, a very deep cross, and Dominique Fred’s header only flicked it on to the far post. Where his keeper wasn’t covering. Nor any defender. And Woody slipped it in from all of two yards.

His second goal a few spins later was a tougher finish but he made that one look almost as easy. Jacques Wanemut cut back on the right and sent in a pass to nobody which Wood pounced on and stabbed it first time into the bottom corner from the edge of the box. He may not be the quickest player, Woody, but he completely burnt Jason Thomas the centre back.

The Leeds striker, without Winston Reid around, is the best player in this squad and unlike other dudes playing at a high level, he’s not unsuited to playing in this tournament. Soon after he took a ball down on the turn with a glorious first touch and rolled past a defender like nobody else could have. Then he got hacked down and while Kevin Shem’s foul was understandable, Wood landed hard on his shoulder and it looked like he might have dislocated it. He was down for a while and eventually left the pitch. He’d be subbed off after a few minutes of physio finagling and could be seen after the match with his arm in a sling. Noooot good news there, worst case scenario is that his “suspected dislocated shoulder” will rule him out for the tourney but we’ll let the doctors deal with that.

Kind of annoying that there hasn’t been more of an update yet.

Anyway, Wee Mac stepped up to take the free kick and I swear to God I knew it was going in before he’d even struck it. Like, an almost-eerie calm descended before the imminent goal. True to form, he did just that with his best Dimitri Payet impersonation leaving VAN keeper Seiloni Iaruel with his feet in concrete.

That was all within about 10 minutes and in the 19th Rory Fallon made it 4-0. Prelevic played him through and he had all the space in the world with VAN’s Thomas playing so damn deep behind the line. He was doing that all game, just sagging off the back four, and it never looked like a clever idea. The elder statesman of the squad Fallon then seemed to make it hard on himself by turning back inside after rounding the keeper but his curling left footed shot found its way into the top corner of an open net. Full disclosure, there was a second there when I thought he’d put it wide – it was a perfectly unnecessary perfect finish.

Kosta Barbarouses replaced Wood and he looked really sharp. Kosta only just finished up with the Melbourne Victory in their Asian Champions League campaign last week so he’s as match fit as they come and with his pace up front all of a sudden, it looked like we could tear Vanuatu to shreds any time we got the ball to him in space.

So why exactly we didn’t do more of that is a bloody mystery to me. Five men at the back, no wingers, they just sat deep. Against Vanuatu they sat deep and looked to soak up pressure, it was ridiculous. Louis Fenton probably should have conceded a penalty in the 13th minute when he dragged a guy down by his shoulder but there was no whistle. Part of the defensiveness was from playing with ten men as Wood was treated but he was replaced by the 15th minute and nothing changed – even Fallon’s goal was a counter attack. And, yes, counter attacks were a major weapon for this All Whites side given how shambolic the Vanuatu defence was any time it got exposed but you’d have thought we’d at least try and hold the ball some at 4-0 up.

The midfield of Wee Mac/Tui/Luka, which is quite a strong trio (Prelevic will probably drop out once others are considered), really wasn’t giving their defence much cover. Guys like Bong Kalo were happy to run at or behind the kiwi defence and there were a few one-two passes there that put the kiwis to shame, switches to teh flanks as well. Vanuatu were 4-0 down, so it’s not like we needed to do anything else, VAN even made a tactical sub after 23 minutes. But you should be able to control a game when you’ve already scored four times in twenty freaking minutes.

Kip Colvey then gave up a free kick right on the edge of the box for a push that was pretty soft to draw a whistle. It almost appeared the ref might book the dude for diving, though first impression was that he was gonna point to the spot. Even if he had, it’s unlikely they coulda got the spottie on target based on some of their shooting. Three times they had attacking free kicks that half and each one was blasted both high and wide. Colvey’s challenge came down to the fact he extended his arm into the bloke, suggesting he thought he was beat. He’s a player I’ve talked up heaps after what I’ve seen of him in the MLS and so far he hasn’t covered himself in glory this Nations Cup. But he’s young, and I expect he’ll get better against better opposition.

Things is, we were sitting deep while they attacked and we didn’t need to. The closer they are to our goal the more likely it is that some wicked deflection or defensive lapse comes into play and they pull one back – why let them have the chance? And with all those players at the back and the three mids spread over such a distance between the front two and back five – though Tui especially was playing way too close to the five – there were no outlets to pass to when we won the ball, so it’d end up in a long one to Fallon or back at a Vanuatu pair of boots. Occasionally Prelevic, as the further forward mid, drifted wide to create an option there but for the most part it was way too narrow from the All Whites. I’m pretty sure that if we could have strung together even a five pass move going forward then it’d lead to a chance at the other end. We did have one move like that but Colvey got his angles wrong and sliced his ball down the line out for a throw (whenever he gets forward he shows why he should be playing on the right).

Honestly, Vanuatu had several chances to score. Shots wide or straight at the keeper cost them but if we’d play like that against Roy Krishna then we’d have had some serious trouble. But right on half time, Fallon flicked on a header and found Kosta running a gorgeous line into space. The defender was never going to catch him for pace once he got going and the soon-to-be-Nix fella pulled off one of those trademark quick-release toepokes for five. He almost had another a tad earlier when he was tackled by the last man – you would’ve backed him if he’d just booted it ahead and run onto it that way, rather than trying to skill the lad.

5-0 at half time and yet Vanuatu actually had the better of the half from about the 20-45 minute range. I know that New Zealand always looked the more likely because of the extra quality, though I’m not seeing that as a valid excuse. Here’s the shocking stat of the half: Vanuatu had 65% possession.

No, seriously, you read that correct. SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT! For Christ’s sake we’re talking about Vanuatu here, not Spain or Germany. Regardless of the tactical approach, regardless of the conditions and the pitch, that’s just not acceptable. And yet we were 5-0 up so what the hell, right? Nobody’s going to argue with a score like that so nobody’s going to notice what a drop off it was from the first game – which itself wasn’t fantastic. I guess it’s better to win this way than to lose playing like Barcelona. And it’s not so much that we played poorly because there were aspects that were great and aspects that were terrible. I think the problem was that Anthony Hudson overthought it.

Anthony Hudson who is always there on the sideline barking instructions. He’s definitely a hands-on manager… even if he isn’t a socks on manager. Oh, and as for the leggings, bro…

There was a half time change with Marco Rojas coming on for Bill Tuiloma. Prelevic dropped deeper, and the team seemed to find a little more balance. It also helped having Rojas’ extra pace on the park, another way to slice on through. Which shows why this game was so frustrating: when we actually played football against them, we carved ‘em up like a Christmas ham.

In the 56th min we had to make our final change. Sam Brotherton took a knock to the head as he blasted a shot over the bar and it started leaking a few pints. That one’ll need stitches, so he had to go off and without a proper centre back to replace him with, on came Python Patterson, with Kosta and Rojas going wide on either side of him, Fallon up tops and Prel/Mac in the middle, 4-2-3-1. It was enforced by the injury but it was an absolute welcome relief to see up commit a few more players up front.

Vanuatu still probed, particularly with their tricky little give-and-go passes which almost always worked because our defenders were marking them so tight that they were never not committed. But, yeah, they sucked at shooting. Stefan Marinovic had to step up and make a couple of saves as the half went on and he did that flawlessly. He hasn’t been tested too often, there was one nice save where he two-hand-tipped a piledriver over the bar though not too many shots found their way within the frame of the goal for him to have to deal with. Still, what he did he did perfectly, not a foot was placed wrong.

Naturally the steam went out of the game with the kiwis tiring and the Vanuatuans accepting their fate. Having said that, there were periods in the second half which, despite ending scoreless, were considerably better than the first. Problem was our attackers were sorta complacent. Several times we worked the ball around through Rojas and Patterson and the two of them were too slow to capitalise, they took too much time when a more ruthless attitude might’ve led to a few more goals. Rojas was pretty annoying in that regard. He knows he can burn his man but he plays so one-paced at times. At least he was there and at least he was playing though, since he offers something to this squad that nobody else there does.

At other times it was like we were trying too hard, playing the extra pass when the opportunity was already there to shoot. Kosta lined one up from outside the box late on and that’s about the only such instance I can remember. Vanuatu’s saving grace in the second half was that they’d already shown us how vulnerable they were, baiting us into trying to score these simplest of goals. Rojas blew a one on one near the end. 5-0 was the way it finished but, yeah, like I said it could just as easily have been 8-0 as it could have been 5-3. What a weird, teasing, frustrating, annoying game that was.

In other news, Roy Krishna scored an 85th minute penalty to give Fiji a 1-0 win over Solomon Islands, meaning that NZ aren’t technically through yet – though they will be – and also meaning that the Solomons are going to need to get something out of their game with us.

New Zealand 5-0 Vanuatu

(Chris Wood 2, Michael McGlinchey, Rory Fallon, Kosta Barbarouses)

NZ Player of the Game: Kosta Barbarouses

VAN Player of the Game: Daniel Natou

Undercover Brother: Stefan Marinovic

Encouragement Award: Kip Colvey

Next Up: All Whites vs Solomon Islands, 9.00pm Saturday (NZT)