You completely missed the point.
Basically Hudson doesn't care what you or I have heard for the last 30 years, ad nauseum about fitness. He couldn't give a toss.
He just wants his players fit, and going on the state Tuiloma, Lewis & Ingham were recently turning up in - message still not sinking in.
Your moaning about not having a squad of players as skillful as Peru (or an AWs coach stating we do) - is better directed as NZF's youth development program. That and fact that we have a popn of only 4M (where football ain't the main sport), compared to Peru's 32M - means it a delusional pipe dream to think the AWs coach will say 'yes man for man we are better than Peru' (substitute any of 50 countries for the world's currently 12th ranked side).
That's not saying AWs shouldn't be striving to be better, but playing team as highly ranked as Peruvians, of course they have better more skilled players than us.
Iceland have less registered footballers than the Waikato region and have a population of just on 300,000. The population argument is a weak one and has been for a long time. Ive been involved in football here since the 60's, during the last decade or so at junior and youth level we are finally trying to coach the right way but unfortunately we still have too many dinosaur coaches who get hold of the the young players and end up producing hoof ball with them. Our development as a football nation has stalled. The next thing we have is a coach in Hudson who turns up and takes our team to the Islands and produces hoofball, despite the fact all of those players have learned to play football on the deck. He blames conditions when in that scenario we have players who are man for man technically better than the Island players but ironically in those qualifying games the Island teams are the ones who try and play the type of football required. We beat them but in nowhere near the convincing type of manner the players are capable of doing. The football the AW's played in the islands was an utter disgrace. The argument that the result is all that matters is a lazy cop out that has no eye to the future.
We wont get past Peru, thats not Hudsons fault but if we dont stop placing coaches in positions of influence who are still stuck with outdated British ideas from decades ago we wont ever break the cycle and turn into a footballing nation. (BTW Im English by birth)
Every time there is a FIFA competition they send technical teams to report on the games. Those reports are then given to every country that takes part. We have never had a single report which talks about technical ability, they all talk about our fitness, strength and organisation. Hudsons comments just reinforce the problem. He hasnt once spoken about him improving our football or technical ability, that influence filters through.
I hope that before I die we have evolved to a point where players who from age 5 have been taught to play pass and move football and with the ball at their feet go into a game where their technical ability is whats lauded. The kids are being taught that but the moment they hit 16 and senior teams start to look at they get asked to play hoof ball. I watched Bill Tuiloma play from age 5 through to 14, he never hoofed the ball, he always played pass and move, Miazawa and other coaches taught him that way. Under Hudson he is suddenly asked to play a different way than his football upbringing, hoof it.
A few years ago I attended a coaching clinic with the then England Womans coach Hope Powell. She had a Q&A at the end of a training session. Another coach asked her what we needed to do in NZ to improve. Her answer was be the fittest team, its what she was doing with England. England failed at the next WC, the next coach took over and Englands womens team improved massively. The old dinosaurs and their influence need to go.
The next coach after Hudson needs to be a coach who has a long term vision even if he isnt here for long, he needs to influence the senior coaches in the country to start using the players we are producing in the manner they learn as kids.
I cant wait till Hudson goes, he has been fudgeing awful. Its not his fault we wont qualify but he hasnt advanced the AW team one bit.
You raise a lot of good stuff, and no doubt you know far more about youth development than me. Couple quick points.
Hudson took a very average side to the OFC Nations Cup, missing alot of experience. He plugged some of that experience gap, with a target man dinosaur in Falloon. Who as it turned out was really needed given Wood missed the final. Hudson was no doubt nervous as hell about repeating the Horrors of Honiara. It was very ugly, but they got job done with big slice of Lady Luck. Flush it down the toilet and move on. Not making Confeds Cup again would have been a diaster. Winning ugly not a disaster.
Is playing 'on the deck the only way to go'?Do Iceland ever resort to the long ball? I haven't watched them at all in a full game? But yes understand as a nation they have a great technical coaching setup for very young kids upwards?
Sure Hudson is far far from blameless about style AWs play, but really a lot of what you are talking is long term planning stuff - not so much his role. And still argue he will leave AWs in better position than when Ricki left, that is some form of progress in itself.