Clearly they were the best two teams across the entire season. Northern have really come on strong the last couple seasons with an exciting young team full of age-grade internationals while the Pride have been chilling at this elite level for ages now.
It’s a little bit mental to think that, having started the season with four defeats, the Wellington Phoenix could now be feeling frustrated at only taking a point from Melbourne Victory away. But here we are.
This wasn’t even Wilkie’s first hatty of the season either, she scored a treble in a 6-1 win over Ovarense a couple months back and that’s now 10 goals in 10 games for Wilkie, including 6 in her last 4. You love to see it.
Eastern Suburbs versus Team Wellington. Rematch of last season’s grand final. A lot has changed since then for both teams but this was still massive, especially with both teams having dropped a few too many points in recent times and find themselves deep in a very crowded top four hunt.
Nothing special about the way the Nix played here, not at all... and that’s why it was so important. It was a trend of the early stages of the season that the Nix had to work so hard and play so well to get their rewards but here they won a game in which they didn’t even play that well.
No time to rest in the Premiership because we’ve got a couple extra-curricular things to crack into here, two rather significant pieces of midweek news. One is Ricki Herbert stepping back from Hamilton Wanderers and the other is this Southern United ineligible player thing.
That whole must-win Europa League game away to Sporting Lisbon didn’t exactly go as planned, with Ryan Thomas named on the bench and when he was finally subbed in for his second Europa League appearance with eleven minutes remaining the team was already 4-0 down. Which is the way it would stay. So... yeah.
Myer Bevan then extended that lead early in the second half with a cheeky panenka penalty kick (is there any other kind?). They’re always risky but for ACFC it ain’t no thing – this was the fifth penalty they’d been awarded in the last four games so if ya miss one, just gotta wait patiently for the next to come along.
One of the recurring themes of the early days of this season has been a young Wellington Phoenix team struggling to find the rewards for all their hard work. Strikers battling away but not scoring goals. Defenders keeping things tight without a single clean sheet. Single goal defeats in each of the first four games.
The Woodsman’s up to his old tricks again. Early in the second half away to Watford, in a game in which he’d barely been involved in during the first half as Watford had by far the better of the play and Burnley had just two off target shots to show for anything, up he popped from a corner kick to volley in an awkward one for the lead.
It’s always a happy occasion when the WeeNix get to play a bit of curtain-raiser footy at the big stadium before the A-League team. Especially because that’s the only time they ever get a home game on telly.
There’s no such thing as a must-win game in the sixth match of the season but after four straight defeats to start things and five games without a win and coming back home after a bye week to face a Brisbane Roar team that’s just as young and transitional as the Phoenix are... this is as close to a must-win as there gets this early in things.
Picture the scene... the North London Derby, Tottenham vs Arsenal at a stacked out Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. 38,262 people were in attendance to watch these two teams compete for the first time since Arsenal hammered Spurs 10-0 in an FA Cup game a couple years ago.
It was only a few years ago that Hawke’s Bay United were regular semi-finalists but with the way they’ve tumbled out of contention the last couple seasons it’s easy to forget that. But under the throwback tutelage of Chris Greatholder and Bill Robertson it’s looking like The Bay might be rediscovering some of that old magic.
Two losses in a row isn’t the prettiest sight in the world but after 525 days between games, and even longer since our top players all featured, any result’s a good result because it means the All Whites actually did something.
The Football Ferns departed the FIFA World Cup in June 2019. The Olympics take place in July 2020. That’s thirteen months between major tournaments, thirteen months to correct the things that held them back at the World Cup and hopefully catch some waves with the world watching in Tokyo.
Chris Wood has signed an extension to his deal at Burnley which will keep him in town until the end of the 2022-23 season – so three more seasons after this one. His previous deal was due to expire after next season so we’re talking a two year extension here... and presumably a cheeky little payrise too.
A crazy few hours of Premiership footy had already unfolded as Auckland City and Team Wellington walked out at Kiwitea Street in a replay of last season’s semi-final and a trio of grand finals before that.
If it weren’t for the pressure of the last four weeks then a draw away to Melbourne Victory would be an undeniably good result. Those four defeats in a row to start the campaign can’t be ignored... but a winless streak is better than a losing streak and the Nix now get the bye week to work on some things with their first point finally on the board.
It’s been a while. The last time an All Whites squad was named was when Fritz Schmid picked his battlers for the Intercontinental Cup in India back in June 2018 and safe to say a lot has happened since then.