I don't think I've ever seen a New Zealand team offer so little before. One of the worst performances I've ever witnessed from the National side. We offered nothing, so much so that I've seen more offers at a house auction in Gore.
There is all of this talk about this squad being the most technically gifted we've ever had. Yet we resorted to trying to kick 40/20s to an isolated Chris Wood. What do you expect him to do with 239400 long balls coming at his head?
Only when we went 2-0 down did we relax and start to play. Too little too late, you're 2-0 down mate.
Player review:
Marinovic: 7 - couple of classy saves, kept score line pretty respectable.
Boxall: 3 - own goal and gave them a Christmas present for the second.
Durante: 4 - solid, but way too much long ball. You lead the line and set the platform for our composure. Play like it.
Smith: 4 - always seems two steps behind. Unlucky with the header being cleared off the line
Covley: 2 - subbed off 83 minutes too late.
Wynne: 3 - should have played in a Russian shirt as he passed to them more than his teammates.
Mcglinchey: 4 - didn't feature until Tuiloma came on allowing him to play in his actual position.
Thomas: 8 - our best player. Fight, tried to play, unlucky with right foot screamer late in the game
Rojas: 5 - tried to play when he had the ball at his feet, impossible for him to be in a game with long balls coming in at head height
Babarouses: see Rojas.
Wood: 7 - what do you expect him to do with an unlimited amount of long ball coming into his face. No service whatsoever. He'd get better service at Valentines.
Reviews are based on a rating system of 0-100.
Can be summed up by Tuiloma's shot at the end, open at the edge of the box, shoots and goes out for a throw-in. To coin a phrase "anything can happen in 90 minutes" - you're damn right, that anything was nothing.
Even the commentator summed up our performance by saying "Hard-running". It's football, running is mandatory.
Please do better, don't make me move to Asia and support Australia.
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I don't expect us to win. But when we lose we want to actually show signs of improvement, playing our style, and go down playing the way we want to play. That performance was worse than anything RH put together in his era managing the team.
They played badly but no one rating more than 8 out of 100 is a bit harsh.
Hudson deserves about that rating for the last two matches probably. The way he talks about the All Whites sometimes it's like the entire side is amateur players.