All Whites Coach Discussion - Hay Fever

Auckland City have relied on imports quite heavily, but TeeDubs haven't really. I'm going here off the top of my head, but last season there would have been 2 from what I can recall, with one of them departing halfway through the season.

Apart from Auckland City the season before and Team Wellington this season?

Four players went to ACFC as opposed the West's starting 11 and TW is this season so I'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion about Danny Hay.

Jeez, Grapa dry your eyes mate.

Is the comment praising Danny Hay for creating these kids or for simply having the guts to give the Ole kids a crack at this level ?

Clearly the former is not true but the later certainly is.

Go and have a lie down.

Just like how it's not clear how Declan producing all those players that won the national title is a sign how Hay's a good coach?

Danny Hay had the guts? Could've sworn Eastern Suburbs as a club formed the Olé partnership, not Danny Hay himself. When the squad you're given is full of kids does he have any choice except to play them? Especially with Declan hovering.

And, if all Hay had to do was "give them a crack", is that really enough to be National team coach? He'll have to do far more than give kids a chance to have success on the international stage.

It's not the case that no-one dared try those kids though, is it? It's just that Declan wanted to have a degree of control that was not easily palatable for most. Except for Danny. And if you think that's a good trait to have in a national team coach, fair play to you.

Be good to know someone closely involved with ES, and just how much of their title success can likely be laid at the feet of Hay. Was he adding much or just taking directions from Edge?

Plenty on here seem close to what's happening at TW & ACFC, but haven't really seen anyone say they are an ES 'insider'. Otherwise it's just everyone making judgements from afar, from El Grap to Niche Cache.

I've seen both Payne and McCowatt praise Hay as a coach, but you would expect that.

I didn't watch any Handy Prem, apart from the final. 

How ES went against the other big sides previously I have no idea (though wasn't Payne sent off against TW in one game?) - but in the big dance they just looked a complete class above. Even before Clapham's brutal injury TW looked way 2nd best.

I mean same with Auckland - still import-heavy, but when you take out everyone who doesn't have NZ citizenship and Browne who's an academy kid, you're left with Berlanga, Zubikarai, Kaltak, and Lea'alafa. You also have Lopez, Bilen and Iwata who were frozen out of the team in favour of Kiwi options like Morgan and Bonsu-Maro. They'd built a decent Kiwi core compared to past seasons

I like the idea of a national coach willing to look past the political bullshark in the football community and select on merit.

I agree it should've been Des

11 November 2018 

Eastern Suburbs 0 Auckland City 1

25 November 2018

Western Suburbs 1 Team Wellington 2

27 January 2019

Auckland City 3 Eastern Suburbs 2

10 February 2019

Team Wellington 3 Eastern Suburbs 1

As for the grand final, yes, fair play to Eastern Suburbs, they won that very comfortably. But let's not forget that the Team Wellington side they played in the final was running on fumes by that stage, with two overseas trips mid-season, and having lost essentially half of its starting line-up, and the entire backline (after the CWC, Watson and Hilliar went to Australia, Barcia to Indonesia, Gulley to the Phoenix, Wood got broken, and Bevin was unavailable for large periods of the second half of the season).

I'm not involved with ES or know anyone that is, but from being close (ie on the sideline taking photos) at games where ES played TW or the Weenix. Declan would spend the first half in the stand, be in the changing rooms at half time and then be on the bench for the second half. 

I think Hay's achievement was ensuring the relationship survived, it apparently nearly did fall apart at one stage, but it didn't. Will be interesting to see what happens this season now Hay has the NZ job

Cheers for that.

Oh boo hoo.

I hate finals football as much as the next fan, but the aim of the game is to get yourself into them and then win two games. One team managed that and fair play to them.

Players leaving, injuries, overseas travel because you're successful.....whatever. Deal with it and move on.

Just laying out the facts for many of those on this forum who don't know them. Why get so worked up about it?

I think one thing that sticks out to me in the latter part of this thread is the fact that teams such as that young ES side are the product of many hands and not down to the influences of just one or two. Thats a positive for me.

freakn loving it

Can't be worse than Huddo

amongst all of the squabbles and worries i think this is the part we all need to focus on

In fairness to Hudson, he did bring a sense of professionalism to the set up and did raise needed points about NZF behind the scenes.

Not a great coach, but I do think some of his work behind the scenes will help Hay in his role now.

It wasn't an either/or choice between Hudson and Hay though. Hudson was gone either way and there were other candidates besides Hay

How so? He was the head coach

Your post raises a couple of additional points that I had overlooked

1. less games together as a team than ACFC and TW

2. no team bonding trips to the islands

3. a head coach who was unfamiliar with the players, yet despite this managed to create a hyper successful environment in a semi pro set up

4. players who had only ever achieved anything at central league level prior to this season, many having never played national league footy before

5. players living out of town

I've got no dog in this fight, el grap 

but to a neutral your usual logicial reasoning seems clouded on this one

and that you simply haven't got over your teams loss

I was just pointing out that the team that Eastern Suburbs played in the final was very different to the one that started the season. And one that struggled to play across three different competitions in one season. It's just context for the grand final that seems to be the only Handy Prem game that many on this forum seem to have seen.

Realistically TeeDubs overachieved by making the grand final last season, and if they hadn't played one of the games of their lives at Kiwitea in late March, I suspect that the entire narrative that's being peddled around would never have even got off the ground.

There is some truth in the above. He left NZ a polarising figure and was a diaster at Colorado, but he did fight hard (sometimes through the media), to get a better deal from NZF for the AWs. Probably a major reason why essentially within the playing group anyway, he was popular.

Hay will also initially have a much stronger playing group than Hudson inherited. Most of that is either due to players like Tuiloma & Thomas who were kids at the start of Hudson's reign, now being pretty seasoned pros - or the emergence of some real exciting talent like Singh, McCowatt, Cacace etc. Hudson tried a shark load of youngsters but few have really kicked on as yet, and many look like fading away into lower level Scandy football (eg Dyer, Patterson). 

Indeed. Travelling thousands of kilometers into tropics and across different time zones mid season makes competing so much easier for any team. Losing 5-6kg per game in those conditions is exactly what players need to really hit their straps late in the season. And yes, complete rookies that included All Whites, previous MOM of the grand final, and poor guys who had just met after playing together for years.

You are right though that Hay was unfamiliar with the squad though, in fact he was so unfamiliar that he didn't even coach them.

Oh, I forgot about the All Whites, thanks for the reminder. TW had 2 on the field and 2 on the pine

The complaints can now be tribal and intercine, rather than wikipedia based!

And, point to consider, maybe Des is actually much better placed developing our young talent than playing a couple of games a year 

You were there from memory El Grap, and I'm sure it was toasty warm, but TW played 3 games in the Islands in Feb for 18 goals for and none against. I'm sure the heat was a killer, but it wasn't world class opposition.

In March they had a game a week in mild NZ, up to the GF. One of those games was a dead rubber pre finals against the Wanderers??

Get the idea, that TW was somewhat gutted during season with various player losses, but don't really get the tired agrument. Maybe they were just more up for it the week before against ACFC their arch rivals of the last few years, but took the ES kids a bit more casually the week after. 

So you're saying Jose should've got the All Whites job? Good call. Certainly much better coach than Danny.

Des is already contracted to NZF so I am assuming that he will be working alongside Hay with the senior team. 

Des is taking the U23s to the qualifiers and hopefully the Olympics in July next year, so would have thought there will be alot of cross over of players especially considering Olympic squad can have 3 overage players.

I think NZF were under pressure to name a NZer to coach the AW's after recent debacles. I can see Hay ticks alot of boxes for that role and remembering Des is still only 34 yrs old. I really hope they are grooming him to take over the role after Hay (ala AB's style of coach progression).

Just hope that NZF have a plan and are offering Des enough to stick around, because it would be areal loss if he left NZ football after the Olympics. That's the risk they are taking.

All I have taken from this thread is how stupidly bitter El grap is that TW got demolished in the national league final by a young ES side.

I don't see that at all. He might be but I think he comes across as not rating Hay and was forced to a degree to defend TW as other posters were getting into him about it.

All I am taking from this thread currently is how some members take every chance to get personal in their comments. 

I think it goes back to what club or coach decided to embrace the ole/declan philosophy and what club didn't. TW was on the doorstep to Ole yet something happened where the two couldn't agree. It took Eastern Suburbs to seek that out and they got the spoils but also showed that the Ole philosophy can work at National League for the benefit of young NZ players.

You can argue to the moon that it was a one off knockout game and no league wins but guess what, thats how tournaments are won whether it be Finals or Champions League, the best teams of the tournament eventually win.

I think whatever happened last year is good for NZ Football no longer a 2 team race. That CWC money from no NZ team qualifying might mean less brown envelopes being passed around the league which might mean a lower qulity import standard or more youth being promoted

As for Danny Hay, I hope he can unite our team to some glorious moments for the white shirt once again

I don't think any discussion of the pros and cons of hiring Danny Hay would be complete without mentioning how terrible his analysis was when he was writing newspaper columns

Who was actually coaching ES? With Edge involved I find it hard to believe that he would have played second fiddle to anyone.

OMG yes. I remember these columns being just so very "basic" in their analysis, and they betrayed the fact that he came from an era (and location) where there was very little thought applied to how the game is played. 

Many top coaches now are absolute football nerds

JD mentioned above that he thought that NZ team who played Oz at Craven Cottage 'knocked the ball around'. It sure as heck didn't!

I also did not enjoy watching his under 17 team do nothing with the ball, just knocking it sideways at the back for minutes on end until the opposition pressed, at which point they hoofed it up to Mata.

I saw some good stuff from his Easts team both pre and post Ole, but for me, he has a lot to prove and IMO the best thing he could do is give Des a big pay rise and a lot of responsibility

"When we kept the ball and knocked it about it was one of the best things I'd seen in an All White shirt." - Danny Hay quoted in NZ Herald after captaining NZ in Ryan Nelsen's absence v Australia at Craven Cottage 2005.