OFC Nations Cup 2016 - vs Fiji | Sat 28 May | 6pm | SS Popup

So giving the ball back to the opposition immediately you get it is the way to go? Defending deeper and deeper?  Letting them dictate play at will ?

You just described the phoenix of last season Jeff.

Jerry Donga just scored for the Solomon Islands against Vanuatu in Group B. 1–0.

So much hate... I don't know what you guys were expecting in island conditions with an under strength team. 

It looked liked the players cared and are not taking anything for granted which may of been the case in the past in similar games. Well done on the win.

Vanuatu vs Solomon Islands ends in a 0–1 victory for the latter. Goal from Jerry Donga (19') which apparently was a chip over the Vanuatu keeper.

Group B table after tonight's matches:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	New Zealand	1	1	0	0	3	1	+2	3
2	Solomon Islands	1	1	0	0	1	0	+1	3
3	Vanuatu	1	0	0	1	0	1	−1	0
4	Fiji	1	0	0	1	1	3	−2	0

Tomorrow's matches (Group A):

•  Papua New Guinea vs  New Caledonia, 6:00pm NZ time.
•  Tahiti vs  Samoa, 9:00pm NZ time.

Tuesday's matches (Group B):

•  Vanuatu vs  New Zealand, 6:00pm NZ time, SKY Sports Pop Up (Channel 55).
•  Solomon Islands vs  Fiji, 9:00pm NZ time.

Ok we got the job done and after all that's what counts but, having scrolled through here, do not get the commendations for Tuiloma. He went missing big time. If you are a central midfielder you must WANT the ball. Yes we had a team and formation designed to play route one but as a CM you are there too control the pace of the game and make those key passes - even if they are 40 yard aerial balls. 

In Hudson's defence the squad was paper thin but I was very dissapointed in Prelevic (three very poorly taken chances lacking technique), Colvey (didn't do the simple things well) and Fenton (crosses when he should be running and vice versa- give me Leo Bertos over him even). Storm Roux really is our best right full back option and Doyle's crossing is better than what I saw from Colvey tonight. I agree with others re Brotherton. 

On the positive side I was impressed by Patterson, Themi and Rogerson. I rate players who get in the ball, want the ball and when they get it do something decisive with it. Patterson was very energetic both on and off the ball.

For the next game I would rest Tuiloma and play Hudson  Wihongi. He needs to be joined by Wee Mac in the middle if fit.

Kudos to the  kts for getting the job done and they looked like the excuted Hudsons plan. I guess I was expecting more... 

Don't quite understand the hate for Prelevic. He's a young guy called into the squad who did more midfield work than our actual midfield. I rated him.

Delusional expectations by many on here. We all know where this team SHOULD be in terms of ability etc but look at who is in this squad and combine that with what we have learnt from previous tournaments in these island nations and the fact our national team is rarely together/playing which means we can't implement certain tactics - as they take more than a two week camp with half the squad still missing to become accustomed to. We're playing it safe which we may not have done in the past and paid the price. Our geographical situation is our weakness and something a lot of you need to come to terms with.

will 3-1 do ?

The devastating effects of climate change.

But if you want us to play that way why bother with Hudson? May as well appoint Kevin Fallon and be done with it. It may be international football but these Island teams are objectively bad, why are we unable to beat them playing passing football? Even with our reduced bodies our players are all at a higher level than theirs

Best player on the pitch by miles.... Roy Krishna

Hudson is a charlatan and the incompetence of NZF has rippled through our whole setup.

Remember Hudson's PowerPoint? He talked about getting a core group of players together and get them used to playing a specific style in regular games, and getting our age group sides playing the same aligned style.

Instead we're still picking new guys in the squad, or bringing back players who Hudson has never picked before (like Fallon). Hudson's much touted style has devolved into pure hoofball. The eligibility shambles robbed us of the Olympics but we've also reached the point where we are turning down friendlies against quality sides.

Absolutely nothing that Hudson and Martin said they would do has been done. No progress has been made since they came in, in fact we have even gone backwards.

We have reached a point where our primary tactic is hitting long balls to a 34 year old targetman who doesn't currently have a club and who has only played 17 mins of 4th tier football this year.

And people are wondering why others are fudged off?

Hudson has done a good job aligning all the nz representative teams to play an attractive style, every team has been playing what he preaches and have been quite successful. Every team plays how Hudson wants, except his own...

What's the problem hater's? We won the fricken game lolz

THAT'S THE PROBLEM. If we'd lost, Hudson would have been fired by now.

Connan pretty much summed it up. I was going to ask if all whites fans feel good about their national coach? For example, we have a young under strength team but we have a very good tactical coach to utilize the hand we are always dealt by distance. Herbert was great at getting a team on the pitch but was not considered a tactician. Are fans confident in Hudson's ability to marshall the troops and play each opposition team on their merits?

Part2 - winning the tournament needs to be the focus. Any potential intercontinental opposition is way too far in the future to even worry about. The AWS will be different. The opposition unknown and Ramon might be in charge by then?

Look I'm no Hudson apologist-

but surely a lot of this is the fault of NZF not getting us games. 

Also his key job here is to win the tournament. He's rested 3 of his key ball players- Marco, Kosta and WeeMac- or correctly they've just got off the plane, and this is a short tournament where we might expect to see some tactical variation.

Not to forget that in plenty of games against Island teams we have been attacked physically: our last game against Tahiti they were simply trying to hit our players any time there was contact in the air and last cup our chances were severely dented by Mark Paston being kicked out of it.

Considering all the sharke that has gone down am I unhappy for us finally to be playing some football and actually winning? No.

To get better friendlies we need to win this tournament. And want to play them of course!

I think it doesn't hurt to bring in Fallon with the amount of experience that has been lost, and he did the job for us this time. I wouldn't necessarily expect him to be plan 'A', but I'm not unhappy with him in the squad. Watson had to be pushing for a spot, but he has also been prone to getting sent off or mouthing off and that would have been a disaster at say 2-1 yesterday.

I'm just happy that the AWs are finally playing and I'm dead keen to see them win. If they can look a little better than yesterday sure, but also in 2010 our strength was a strength. Sure we don't want to be kicking the ball back to quality teams, but think of players bouncing off Watson in the HK sevens. If we are good at that, we shouldn't rule it out as a tactical option. It's one way to win.

Not with a performance like that. C'mon guys, it was dog sh*t. If we play like that against a team that is actually made up of footballers, we're fu*ked. Completely uninspiring, longball, Herbert-esque bollocks. Just bring back ricki/Nelsen.

I agree that NZF have to shoulder a large part of the blame but Hudson has had 6 games in charge before last night, plus the time spent with the U23s, and we look as bad, if not worse, than when he took over. He was hired with the promise of a comprehensive plan to get us playing a certain way in order to prepare a settled, cohesive team which was used to playing together in time for the WC playoff. He has failed abjectly at that goal. NZF might have been responsible for the eligibility debacle and turning down Russia but the Olympic matches we missed out on haven't been played yet, so it's not like that's cost him time with the squad and matches yet.

He said he wanted to identify players and get them used to playing together. Last night (5 games he picked squads for and 2 years in) Hudson started what, 5 players he's never picked for a senior starting lineup before I think? (Adams, Brotherton, Colvey, Patterson, Fallon I think). How does that fit with his plan to get guys used to playing together?

I agree that physical, aerial play is a good way to beat the Island teams but it will see us get smashed by better sides. It's basically how we tried to play over 2 legs against Mexico and they tore us apart. Which is why we hired Hudson in the first place. If we win this we are then either going to have to try to get used to new tactics yet again or prepare for embarrassing hidings at the confeds and WC playoff stage. Sure, we got results playing like that in 2010 but we don't have the same quality in our defensive core now to expect to be able to absorb that much pressure for sustained periods.

tl;dr - we should be good enough to beat Fiji playing decent football

Opinion: What a god-awful watch that was!

Fact: we won 3 -1.

Opinion: We should be a hell of a lot better than we are.

Fact: the world's 161st ranked team just beat the world's 183rd ranked team. 

Apart from us, who cares?

Rudimentary, is how I would describe that performance.

Love me some Themi.

Yeh. Same page.

Spitting tacks that we lost to Thailand 'C'. Still kinda think it is bizarre that James and Keat aren't in the picture or even on the map in his office. They both play centre mid. Where we don't have a lot of strength. Annoyed at the cheap senior caps given out to players that haven't earned it.

I'm looking at this result after the sharke sandwiches he has served up and going- thank f- we won. I don't agree that we tried to out muscle Mexico. We tried to hold them out and then catch them on the counter later on. And for a while, I think 20 minutes or so, we held shape and the crowd started to get restless. 0-0 at half and the pressure would have been all on them. 

The second game we tried to play a bit and they were just a lot lot better at it. 

I'm just seeing WINNING as an improvement in itself and hopefully we might see a bit more from here on in. 

On the other hand I can see he had a plan to turn that Under-20 squad into the basis for his playing style and the Olympics just blew that plan to smithereens. 

So it's not a pass mark from me, just glad Roy didn't score a hatty and that we didn't lose 4-2 or something like that. Hoping to see more and glad to have some football to watch.

Also- he's the guy we've chosen. This is the tournament. Let's judge him at the end of it and support the team in the mean time.

Keats injured and James is hardly setting world on fire

true enough. Henderson too? 

We're shark and we know we are and we won 3-1

We lack that creative midfielder yes. Itll come

Yeah but Luka Prelevic, Moses Dyer etc are hardly setting the world on fire at club level either

Oh dear, it wasn't pretty enough for some...

Agree that dyer and prevelic shouldnt be there either hence why i suggested hicks and keat if he wasnt injured

i don't think anyone here is hating on any of the players

but the fact remains that some just aren't good enough yet they are there for a number of reasons related to NZF, hudson and also some of those excluded (attitdude, etc)

i think our game's just in a mess really and it showed on the pitch

NZF are rotten to the core , everyone external knows it. Essentially anyone playing at northern league standard around the country could theoretically win a cap. Things have not been moved on in 15 years. Guys have been picked year after year who are pure mud ( do the coaching staff not review any of the footage?) , and they keep getting picked as if to justify their initial selection. What is the value of an international all white cap ? In the current climate f all

I'm reserving judgement until the end of the tournament. If this style pays off and we win, then I'll applaud Hudson for it.

But I think that any island team that is half decent will be relishing the chance of playing against us.

We created very very few clear cut goal scoring chances last night, and had to rely on some honking defending for our second goal and a lucky penalty for the third.

The trouble is the rotten infect the rotten and have to band together to survive.

After watching that tripe if I was the CEO I would be looking for a new coach. 

But no, Andy realises he is not exactly flavour of the month after managing a series of major cluster fudge ups. If he sacks the coach who he appointed and whom he hasn't given many games, it ain't a good look and his ass will be grass next.

So the incompetent protect the incompetent to keep their weekly pay check coming in.

It's truely what you call a vicious cycle.

Not a mention on TV One news. Several minutes of fugby squad analysis but not a mention of the AWs.  Fudgeing disgrace.

wrong thread

I am largely doing the same because that was fudgeing awful to watch. It's really was and if Rory was not playing, Kevin would have been all over the Sunday press about it and rightfully so. It's interesting he has shut his cake hole now that his kid is involved...

That was not a 1st choice top strength NZ team (with the players that have been picked in the 22) and I suspect it was picked to not overcook the likes of McGlinchey, Kosta and keep some freshness for the business end of this tournament when it's really needed. EG reckoned Fiji would be dangerous - they would not scare most ASBP sides..

It was poor but with the schedule, conditions, officials and players available plus preparation, it's a win and 4 or 5 shark wins that get us to Confeds is better than 4 nice wins and a loss and doing nothing. As others said, results are all that matter and this was to be the toughest game of our group and we got a result. I'll worry more about the finesse of the results once the tournament is done but Hudsons 1st brief is Confeds cup and regardless how we do it, that's all Hudson needs to do so for the mean time, I'll reserve my overall doom and gloom on style on the proviso he is winning at this tournament.

I had a similar thought during the game and a couple others said the same but Neil Emblen would have produced a far better performance with the same players.

O noes...

TV3 covered it in its half hour sports slot.

The general consensus seems to be that it was a terrible performance, but on the plus side, the win against Fiji was New Zealand's 150th A-International victory in 363 matches over 94 years (the remaining results are 65 draws and 148 losses with 647 goals scored to 570 conceded).

(NZ's 100th win came against Oman in 1996)