All Whites vs Oman | Fri 13th Nov | 3:00am

I've never seen a white bus before but I have today

So close!!

We are making Oman look better than they are IMO, Oman look well drilled in their game plan but individually the players have no skill at all, and they still have us pinned

The gaps and space Oman are finding is very worrying.

we are poor and Hudson will go "but see? I got a result you all wanted so it's working. I told you so"

we look like a 160 ranked side

not a bad result when you consider this is far from our first 11. I'll take the first win in two years thanks.

I still don't see how even Jason Hicks/Chris James/Dan Keat/Cam Howieson/Matt Ridenton/Albert Riera(?)/Tim Payne are for some reason lower down the pecking order than Lewis and Hudson-Wihongi, I think both Lewis and Hudson-wihongi will grow to be good players don't get me wrong but for this cycle how are the above players seen as worse? Considering the current gapping hole at CDM Id think Hudson should be calling up and trying every option he has there.

Sorry I wasn't impressed by that performance, I vow never to get up at 3am again and watch that type of shark game

Well on the plus side at least there is still the phoenix to look forward to

What a relief...finally the AW's win.

Actually I thought we got better in the second half. I thought they would come out and steamroll us. However we kept our defensive shape and didn't panic under pressure. OK there was some longball out of defense but there were three or four times where we kept the ball and passed it quite fluidly. Their shooting was fairly wildly inaccurate and another day we might have shipped three goals but you take your luck.

What I really liked was the spirit...they worked their socks off....pressed really well and got in behind the ball. I liked seeing this team play with guts....thats a start, now they can work on skill and teamwork. Still a shiite load of work to do and I still don't see how ASB players and Nix reserves are better than some of our other pro's playing offshore but I guess its Hudson's call.

I really liked Marinkovich....he was under pressure but played well. Apart from one kick out on the full he has very good distribution skills. Boxall was very solid at RB. Weemac was busy but needs some muscle beside him in central midfield. Tough night for Wood as he saw little ball but he took his game well. 

There will be know doubt criticism of our play but if this game was a Asian Federation WC qualifying game we would be very happy now.

Saw a shot of our CEO Martin in the stands with the bigwigs....does the boss always go to the away games?

You beaut - get in

Fudge, at this stage I don't  care how it happened, I'm just happy we won.

Hopefully this can bring some confidence into the camp and we can start to gel a bit more as a team. 

Desperately need to sort out the central midfield though. 

Totally forgot the game was last night.

How did WeeMac do?  Was it worth him not being with the Nix?

At least we won.  Was Oman placed higher or lower than us?

Didn't see the game but relieved to win. Remembering we were missing three of our best, too.

I woke up expecting a loss so was pleasantly surprised. Caught the last 20 minutes of the replay on sky.

So we nicked an early goal, then parked the bus and played longball, with a couple of periods of good play either side of half time?

It's good we won but from the comments it appears more to do with Oman's wastefullness than anything we did.

Is anyone ranked lower than us? Oman is ranked around about 100. For reffeence they lost 4-0 when they played the soceroos.

Can someone that watched please do individual player ratings?? missed the game

25th November 2017 Montevideo

NZ qualifies for World Cup solely due to the football genius of coach Anthony Hudson ...

wow we actually won a game . great  stuff . about bloody time . haha .

Dial a friend....heaps.

http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-tab...

Looks like Cameron is a bit of a find - not that we need another quick winger necessarily, but more depth is welcome.

How bad did his injury look?

Oman is 92nd and to be fair unbeaten in 7 games prior so are coming off recent match play and decent results. They managed to hold out Aussie twice in recent history.

We battled for most of the game, but this was to be expected - most of our players play here in NZ and are just getting out of winter or play in Europe and are heading into a winter.... going to Oman and playing in 30 degree + heat would affect anyone.

Once Cameron went off we lost a really promising attacking outlet, I was surprised to see Rufer come on instead of Barbarouses who has been a form player in the A League.

He certainly seems to have some favourites (Lewis) etc, but this can't carry on when we play qualifiers.

Brotherton looked good at CB and is a player to watch. With Reid, Smith and Tuiloma we would look like a completely different team.

We could actually play a genuine 3 at the back with Themo and look to have Roux / Fenton as WBs or play with two DM's and two actual wingers etc and try to play with a bit more thrust.

Having Wood up by himself all the time isn't really working and we need to find someone to play off him.

Australia often struggle against so-called Asian minnows when away from home. It's not easy to play over there.

Was Kosta injured? That's what the AW's facebook page said.

Is it true we now have to wait until May next year for the next game? That's so stupidly far away

That's because there aren't any international windows until the OFC Nations Cup

Hmm, he survives another day

Another six months. Hope in the absence of games he'll get his act together as far as working out our First X1. He's seen enough players. So have we. Maybe we'll get to see a few NZ A v NZ B matches? Or maybe NZF might pull another rabbit out of the hat and we'll get a proper game. Hope so.

He knew he was crocked soon as he went down.

Far too soon for it to be Rogerson, that's obvious. Shame Smeltz wasn't there. Patterson too.

Patterson is more of a winger.

Barbs use to play off him in age group footy, could he do it again. Brockie feeding off his knock downs?

Im absense of other games NZ A vs NZ B matches would be fantastic. I'd pay to see that... I'm guessing it wouldn't include most of our overseas players though...

Well put it this way he scream was very loud - and the kid was in massive pain. I still don't know what happened but it looked like his knee popped on him.

Its a shame as he really stood out with the little time he had on the field.