Big time footy over here. Wellington United suffered their first loss last week and more dropped points this week would take them out of the running for top two... and their opponents were Auckland United who haven’t lost a game all year

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon at Linfield Park... ripe for some footy. Coastal Spirit have been a surprise package this year, continuing their magnificent year of achievements by nestling into a final contention in the Nats

David Ball was left out of the Wellington Phoenix’s A-League squad for the trip to Perth this weekend and Giancarlo Italiano said the reason for that was to get him some minutes for the reserves. Instead of Perth he got to go to Auckland’s North Shore

Someone may have forgotten to alert the groundskeepers about the weekday footy because four minutes into the match they had to hit the pause button when the automated sprinklers went on. Look, we’ve all been there.

Ah yes, the Southern Derby. Logan Park in Dunedin was the venue. For years the Canterbury United dynasty owned this league with Southern hovering around the very bottom of the table and the results reflected that chasm. But in recent years the results have flipped.

At the beginning of this round, Western Suburbs were last with comfortably the worst defence while Auckland City were first with the equal-best defence. Winless versus undefeated.

Heading into this international window, the All Whites had a rare opportunity. They’d managed to bag a 1-1 draw against the USA in their previous match and now they had two immensely winnable fixtures on the calendar

Wellington Olympic vs Eastern Suburbs shaped to be a doozy but not like Auckland City vs Cashmere Technical at Kiwitea Street. Auckland City had been far from flawless but they don’t need to be flawless in order to win games, they usually find a way.

Central Football were back at the lovely Massey University field for week three, having already lost 5-0 at this scene against West Coast Rangers and then having their week two trip to Dunedin postponed due to the extreme weather.

A Mediterranean Derby in only the second round of matches? We sure are spoiled. Wellington Olympic hosted this one at Martin Luckie Park having been blanked by Coastal Spirit in a week one draw

After both Wellington United and Canterbury United bathed in the afterglow of excellent week one victories, they also found themselves in the tricky spot where a bad result in the next round would potentially undo all that graft

The first weekend of National League is always special but much love to Mr Chris Greenacre for making it even more so by giving us a present with his team line-up.

A brand new season of glorious National League football in Aotearoa got underway with a couple of concurrent kickoffs in the Women’s competition. More on Central vs West Coast Rangers soon but first...