Pretty sure that was McCowatt’s first ever game against an island nation, despite going to 3 youth World Cup’s, an Olympics and having half a dozen senior caps.
New Caledonia were pretty disappointing, I hadn’t watched them play their other games, but I had high hopes for them on paper. Doesn’t seem any of their pros came down except for Gope-Fenepej, and he didn’t play today. Fitness/belief seems to be a problem, it felt we could score every time we went forward at the end. Almost felt unfair having a quadruple sub of Wood, Cacace, Bell and Tuiloma.
It’s a bit funny that the most dominant scoreline came with the fully rotated team. Rogerson deserved his start after two runs off the bench, and I thought no one played badly, though it’s almost impossible to when you win 7-1.
Happy for De Jong, he copped a lot of undeserved flak after PNG for not being Chris Wood, and to come on and get a goal and two assists is a good effort. Given guys like Rojas, Brockie and Barbarouses have 141 caps between them for 10 goals, his 2 in 8 aren’t bad (and that doesn’t even count his goal vs Algeria A).
Rogerson vs Champness in a full strength 23 is pretty tight in my opinion. I’ve felt Rogerson has been better and offers a greater threat, but there’s a decent debate there. Turkish league is much stronger than Finnish, so that helps Champness, but regardless of that, game time is paramount and Champness has only played 25 minutes this year for a team battling relegation. If Rogerson hits the ground running for Haka then his case will be very much strengthened.
As for Tahiti, I have no real ideas what to expect, as they’ve only played once and lost 3-1 to the Solomons. Would be happy with either a 3-4-2-1 or a 4-3-3, but either way I’d expect to see Tahiti sit very deep, and gain more confidence the longer it stays 0-0.
If we run 3-4-2-1 I’d like to see:
Marinovic;
Tuiloma, Reid, Pijnaker;
Kirwan, Bell, Stamenic, Cacace;
Just, Grieve;
Wood
Though realistically any of the front line bar Wood are very interchangeable, so any combination could start.