ConanTroutman wrote:
martinb wrote:
ConanTroutman wrote:
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?
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.
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.
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.
