AWs V Japan Wed 5th March 11:30pm SS1

Nice ball in and finish. 1 more goal and ill be happy.

Who stopped watching! That shut the crowd up.

Some awesome tackling.

Thomas off. Elbows on. Good showing from thomas today. Looks very very good

Lo!

Rory Fallon on!!!!! YEAH!!!!!

Fallon really did his job, sliding tackle the defenders when the ball out of play!!!

No wonder everyone is complaining about the chanting

The Japanese want the final whistle now I think...

Oh come on dura. Rushing out of the line then fouling. Kerp ya head son

*keep

Well done mossy

We are more dangerous with the crosses from the wings, hope Neil and the future manager will know, not a must to play passing football.

So we won the last 73 minutes 2-0. Has to be classed a success..... in my book at least. Well done to the young lads. Stand outs...Thomas, Boyd and Boxall. Also next outing would like to see Billy T get game time at DM.

4-2 isn't so bad.. I think we would have expected a result similar before the game. Considering where we were after 17 minutes I think 4-2 is respectable. Just what the hell happened at the start! 

Really like the look of the Chris Wood + Tyler Boyd combo up front. Throw in Rojas/Thomas/Kosta down the wings and we have some good attack. But I really think we had one attacker too many at the start and we need to have two holding midfielders. I know Reid and Smith weren't there but I don't know if I'd keep Durante.. 

Well that was fun.

Very happy.

Fuck we need reg competition..

:(

Imagine if we had reid smith and rojas in there. Side just needs a midfield general

Finished!

But for the 2 first goals they got which have big refereeing question marks over them the game ended up  lot tighter than the first 17 minutes suggested. Those who signed off in disgust then missed a great 70 minutes of NZ football. Imagine what a full strength team with more than a  couple of training runs together will be like. We missed some good chances as well. Given a wee bit of luck we could have won that. Wood could easily have got a hat trick given the number of good chances he had.

@luis.. I say stay with that formation we had, when we have our strongest team on the park we will be a lot stronger in all facets of the game and I doubt we will see much more of Dura in a white shirt.

Did Brockie get on? I don't even know it, Fallon at least make chaos in their box, but Wood 2 goals in 7 chances, oh my! Need to improve!!!

Brockie on for about last ten at the most, I remember him touching the ball twice.

Wood still got two goals I don't think he's solely to blame here..

Brockie made a few good runs with the ball at his feet and then gets one pass before Dewhurt goes "is that Brockie's first touch?" ..FFS. He went okay.

I saw none of the game so can't comment on the performances but 4-2 in their stadium with basically our Olympic team against a full Japanese side looks like a fairly promising result to me.

Still think that if Payne is our midfield man for the next 4 years then someone needs to put some pressure on him to find a club where he's going to play first team football.  

The Japanese have lots of chants some just sound similar and the whole stadium wasn't very coordinated

Think we played really well, minus the start. Boyd was great for me. Just wish he could shoot. Shows great promise for the future as that was an almost full strength japan team. Many Japanese people were saying minimum of 3-4 to bill otherwise was a bad result.

From what I saw lots of promise, and here's some other thoughts

Durante definitely not an intl CB

Cant play that formation with those players - we were simply overrun in midfield in the first half

Boyd is really quick and looks great at times, but he needs to have more of an impact, ie he hardly ever scores and seems to freeze when he gets into good positions for a shot or the final pass/cross

Usual story - not enough preparation time

boyd issue for me is composure, he does all the hard work to get into good scoring position but that's where he panics and rushes the shot.

4-0 down and I went to bed predicting a total trainwreck, pleased to see we fought back to 4-2 but I gather the Samurai backed off a bit with the job been done

well i left at half time, mainly because i was drunk. From what i remember, our attack seemed alright, midfield were alright too, our defence was crap. The amount of time bill, storm, dura were caught out in the first 40 was crazy, you could see it coming everytime japan attacked. Also Mossy seemed uncharacteristically poor in the first half, i certainly think he could've saved their fourth. Not great but not bad, good experience for the youngsters.

Just watched the replay this morning, was definitely impressed with how we looked. Obviously the first 17 minutes or so weren't the best but how we recovered and played after that was really encouraging. As has been said, if we had Reid and Smith at the back it could have been a bit different too. Boyd was impressive, as were Wood, Thomas, and I think Payne as well. It's a big ask for a young guy to play as the sole DM in against a technical side like Japan but I think he did the job adequately. Would be interested to see him as a holding midfielder alongside Tuiloma in a 4-2-3-1.  Moss didn't have the best game but the conditions were awful. Roux concerns me a bit, his positioning is a bit questionable at times. But overall, happy, and hopeful that Emblen gets the job fulltime.

For a first up showing under a new coach away against a quality side in a  packed stadium with a team of young fullas that was a creditable result.

Not a bad results and performance all things considered. Some positives to come out of that and hopefully a strategic/tactical lesson or two.

Issues remain in central midfield. Came out far too attacking and got run over in midfield and wide. Happy to persist with Payne, but need to find a system that provide more support in there. Not sure Roux is best placed to be our future right back. Too attacking for our place in the football world. Need more defensively from him.

Still think 4-2-3-1 in our best hope.

On the positive, it was great to see us be able to hold possession for longer periods of time, and the subsequent chances that brings.  Can't fault any of the attacking players. Kosta perhaps the least effective.

Its been awhile since Kosta has genuinely impressed me at international level...

Remind me how the first goal was related to a Reffing decision? Thought it was a slip and indecision.. Second goal was well worked by the striker falling over.. Third was poor defending and Woods not getting up.. Fourth was terrible keeping..

We had numerous chances which was a real highlight.

Dura is not an Int player (as seen in the Mexician game) but was one of two choice's considering the unavailability of Winston and Tommy. 

It would be good if we could have more games and start building on this team, you will always have injuries and we need more depth. If you added Rojas (Kosta) Winston and Tommy we have the base for a very good team.

Think Boyd needs to work on making his first touch a more proactive one. He seems to kill the ball/momentum with his first touch then relies on his pace to get moving again. Sometimes that works but I think he could be devastating if he knows where he's going before he gets the ball more often.