I haven't read it all, but you can see what they were trying to do and how it could have workd.
We were always massive underdogs, even before Reid's injury. If we had been able to cling on until half time at 0-0 and then bring on Marco and James in the second half either equal or a goal down, then the game might have been interesting and it would have been the home side under masses of pressure.
As it was there were individual errors between Durante, Moss, Smith and Vicelich, but there could have been so many other goals scored which they defended.
Playing James and then bringing on Howieson or Clapham might have made a different or it might have made no difference at all.
Reid would definitely have made a difference, but it might not have been a winning difference. The good news is there seems to be a very good team of footballers there. The bad news is that we don't seem to have the coach and set up willing to trust them and we don't play the games to give them a chance to develop as a team.
Lastly, I put part of it down to players who were good pros, or players who were passionate about their country- into this category I would put Tim Brown, Ryan Nelsen, Ben Sigmund and from this game- Chris James. They were fired up, angry when we were doing badly and really, really left nothing on the park. I think this is part of what was missing out there. That said I think Wood showed signs of this too. We missed that spirit in the team somewhat. Think that it was Brown and Nelsen who organised 'One Shot for Glory' and think about the public marketing for this game- nothing, fairly anti-climactic and it showed up in the end. I would have been tempted to play Siggie just for his fire, provided he kept it under control.
anyway- where to from here for NZF? I'm worried it will be Emblen and mediocrity. I say again the players are there, but they need some serious support in terms of games organised and sh*te taken care of off the park.
Remember Emblen was the assistant coach at Honoraria and now here. There are those who will support him. I think with our exciting attacking talent now available we need to be more ambitious.