All Whites Coach Discussion - Hay Fever

"Regularly wasn't available for the All Whites as a player"

He was very available and regularly picked from the time of the Middle East Tour of 1997, all through 1998 including the Nations Cup victory (where he was immense) and up until he was given the chance to trial with Leeds United. He asked if he could miss a couple of Confeds 99 build-up games (versus Singapore and Malaysia) in order to trial, and then rejoin the squad for the build-up to Mexico. Coach Dugdale said no, dumped him from the squad, and he was out for the rest of Dugdale's tenure.  He then came back into the mix v Poland when Mick Waitt had the team, leading on to Confeds 03 in France (having overcome a horror run of injuries). He then captained the team during Ricki Herbert's early years before retiring as a player.

So apart from the time he was dumped and then injured, when was he not available?  That comment just seems a bit unfair.

Not a fan of Hay but I do remember this and I thought Dugdale at the time was inflexible and unreasonable. From memory it was the first time in a long time that one of our players had a chance at a decent team in England and at the time Leeds were on the up. It was a very stubborn approach by Dugdale within the context of Hays opportunity.

Thanks for that info guys. I didn't know that. We know little of our own football history, especially before the 1970's.

Interesting stuff...

Exactly. He's become a Declan convert. If anything we could find the AW's going all tippy-tappy.

Tippy tappy possession football is outdated now. These days it's all about gegen pressing and verticality.

Hope verticality doesn't = up & under.

Dugdale also left Simon Elliott out of the confeds

Both Elliott and Hay were not available for the build up tour, which Dugdale considered essential, so they were left out

My understanding with Simon was that it was nothing personal, but possibly with Hay it was

verticality??? is that like virtual physicality or something?

https://spielverlagerung.com/2016/05/12/tactical-t...

*Edited to include nerd link*

With our comments on here, perhaps it could be known as the Antihistamine Hay Fever Thread?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/115313339/new-all-whites-coach-danny-hay-believes-the-team-can-play-with-greater-freedom

Leeds were definitely on the up - they were in te top four of the premiership around that time and playing in Europe

I saw that 2005 0-1 loss to Oz (at Craven Cottage) and Hay's right - we matched them all over the park playing neat possession football. Even Steven Old looked comfortable on the ball!  We lost the game right at the death. Then our style of play went backwards for years afterwards. God knows why. Or maybe Ricki knows why...

You're seriously criticizing the most successful era of All Whites football based on a meaningless friendly that only a handful of people saw?

- Wouldn't play for the Phoenix because fudge Wellington

Just referring to a certain manner of playing. 

NB Craven Cottage seemed pretty full on the night.

Yeah drawing three games at the World Cup against good quality opposition was absolutely awful. 

was a fun evening!

It was great, but the football was awful.

Magnificent possession football from the All Whites throughout, I think I counted several passages of play where we put together passing sequences of two, or at times even three, passes! 

Yep. That side should have had 70% possession, 20+ shots on goal, and 3+ goals per game, waltzing their way into the final.

Drawing the three games, including against the defending world champions Italy, was an absolute disaster and I was frankly embarrassed by that performance and sincerely hope it is never spoken of again, such is the shame attached to it.

The tackling was tasty though.

We never should have gone if we couldn't have done that.

I can't believe so many of you are hitting "This" on el grap's post as if anything Jerzy and I said implied that the team should have played like that in 2010.

It's possible to appreciate the results while also accepting that it was not aesthetically pleasing.

/meh.

Absolutely, and I think 2010 was a great achievement which I remember fondly. I just think el grap's reaction completely mischaracterised what I was saying. 

Football has its results and it has its aesthetics. Some only care about one or the other, some find beautiful what others find ugly. I care about both, and the 2010 All Whites got good results but did it in a way I didn't/don't find aesthetically pleasing. I recognise that they probably couldn't have got those results any other way, so when I say it was ugly it doesn't mean I think they should have played differently.

Getting back to the main topic though, I think Danny has evolved as a coach and we definitely have the players to play a more technical game than in the past, so while it may not be 2018/19 Eastern Suburbs football I don't think he'll send the All Whites out to play the dire football many are predicting.

From Niche Cache.

http://theniche-cache.com/football/2019/8/27/not-only-do-the-all-whites-still-exist-but-now-theyve-got-a-coach-too

"But remember that what he did with Eastern Suburbs wasn’t just impressive… it was brave and revolutionary."

Jesus F Christ.

So brave and revolutionary to be given a ready made team that is use to playing together and a certain style of football and continuing it.

Niche Cache is normally bloody good, but missed the mark here for me

To be fair it was pretty much one comment in a long indepth article, that would have taken ages to compose. But as humans we like to jump all over the one thing we don't agree with.

And yes Niche Cache is bloody good.

A team of kiwi kids aiming to and successfully winning the national league seems fairly brave and revolutionary to me

In the latest Niche Cache podcast. He talks a bit about the Hay appointment as new coach and explains his reasoning why he likes it a bit more. Everyone of course is entitled the there own opinions.

I'm not sure about the hyperbole in this case but show me the queue of people willing to work with Declan and give the Ole kids a chance at this level.

Is it really? The comment makes it sound like it was a huge underdog story with the team coming from nowhere to compete for a national title against all odds, which just defies simple facts. McCowatt was already a star of the league and grand final MVP the season before with ACFC, Payne and de Jong were fringe All Whites, and the Ole side had absolutely been waltzing the Central league, had been together for a while, and had a very developed and distinct style of football which they brought over to Eastern Suburbs. It's blatantly obvious that a team like that would be in heavy contention to win the title, if anything, it would have been an absolute travesty if they weren't.

Even so, that side lost all four regular season games against the big boys in the league, and while they did win the most important 5th game against that level of opposition, they ended up the national champions only because of the play-off system that the league employs, when in reality they were staring at the ACFC backsides for the entire campaign, and didn't beat them once. And that's not to mention that they had the advantage over the two other big teams in the league who had to play OCL qualifiers in the Islands in the middle of the season (and TeeDubs also had to travel to the UAE in the middle of the season, not that they would complain about that).

And all that context gets ignored, and all of a sudden it is revolutionary and brave to compete for the national title with one of the best teams in the country, whose coach had actual next to nothing to do with bringing them up to that level? Seriously? Even Hudson wouldn't dare go that far.

What I found refreshing about the ES team was that they didn't have any import players. Auckland particularly and Wellington have dominated the league for many years now. How many foriegn import players do they have in there teams on a regular basis ?.

It was good to see an all kiwi team win the knock out phase of the title.

I'm not sure how much that had to do with Hay. But you can't take away from there achievement in what they did with an all kiwi team. Mostly young team at that.