ASBP 2015/16 TV games | Thurs 10th Mar | GF: Auckland City v TeeDubs | 7:30pm | SS4

Thrilled for Waibop after that 5-1 win over Waitakere.

Congrats to Wade Molony for his hat trick, the first a real stunner that set the platform. And for the quotient of attacks the team created overall.

Waitakere have some good players. But they're not really a team, are they?

This was Molony v Baloney.

Was irritated by the commentator persistently saying Waibop have never previously beaten Waitakere. Perhaps not undert the Waibop handle, but this is a carry-over of the same franchise licence as held by Waikato FC since 2004. For all intents it is the same outfit.

Or must we wipe history after a name change? Must we disown, for example, that classic 2-1 win over Waitakere at Centennial Park?

Must Southern United now forego all its Otago United heritage? Thoughts please.

Like Jeremy Ruane's observation that home teams are really struggling for points this summer, with just one draw.

Shelley will need to find a new CB pairing cause him and Haviland are not up to it. Shelley has embarrassed himself 2ce on TV now. Expect Robinson in goal next game.

Again, the Eastern Suburbs duo of Shaw and Barnes did nothing. Massively overrated.

I  expect them to implode shortly.

WaiBOP played some nice football in parts. As much as Maloney got a hat trick, the MOM was Jones. Shark that kid has an engine in him.

Someone needs to have a word with Shelley.

Waitak scored when they got the ball down on the, admittedly atrocious, deck and played it. Lovemore's goal was what he does, neat throughball and calm finish.

If ACFC could play a slower paced passing game and score four and WaiBOP could mince five goals, then the problem ain't just the pitch.

Vader, agree with comments on Jones. He is still young, a super athlete with fire in his belly, and I was surprised he didn't get player of the year for Wanderers Sports Club in northern premier league. (On the subject of which, it was a bit of a joke that Jones'  team mate Jama Boss won the premier league's overall player of the year. Jama is a nice little player, but perhaps says something that he was not wanted by anybody for summer league.)

Waitakere might do better to switch Aaron Scott and Ross Haviland around.

How long has former All Whites coach Paul Smalley been on duty at Waitakere?

I expect Scott to transfer back to WaiBOP Xmas time if Waitakere have imploded. Why travel to play for that garbage.

I thought the Waitak winger Nicolai Berry looked quite promising - he never received much of the ball (most of the time Waitak had the ball, they didn't really look down the left) but when he had a bit of space he got past the opposing fullback a few times and sent over some really good crosses.

Agree that Berry looks a talent. But would temper it with the knowledge that Scott Hilliar (centre midfield for Melville in winter and former NZ U20 800m champ) is a rather inexperienced fullback, still on a learning curve about defending in that position.

Enjoyed the game . Not sure of the croud - maybe 300 ? It was effectively free admission if you had the voucher. Waitak don't seem to have any fans at all and sometimes wonder what they bring to the league.

There was some real keystone cops defending at times and a large difference between the sides was the goalkeepers - thought Speedy was excellent and I've never considered him that good on my limited viewings of him.

Still can't make up my mind whether Waikato were that good or Waitak that bad ? Waikato certainly had some lovely players.

I always find  Jones exciting to watch (with some reservations about his temperament) . but it was noticeable that he faded in the last 20 minutes - otherwise he would have had at least a hat trick as well.

Smalleys an interesting case - has all the diplomas etc , but all the sides he has been associated with in NZ seem to struggle.

Hi all,


My wrap-up on last night's match:

http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/Scoreboard/latest_asb_premiership_match.htm

Danny Robinson will have a helluva job playing in Waitakere's next two games, Jeff, given he'll be with the Football Ferns on goalkeeping coach duties in Brazil.

Paul joined Waitakere in October 2014, Bruce -

http://www.oceaniafootball.com/ofc/News/ViewArticle/tabid/125/Article/f6c7a609-2830-4d8f-bd5d-2073f63042b6/language/en-US/Default.aspx

That pitch is awful! Thankfully, there will be no more matches taking place on it this month, with the next scheduled game there that between Wellington Phoenix and Waitakere United on Dec 3, two days before the Wellington Phoenix v. Melbourne Victory encounter.


Cheers,

JR

Jones has calmed down a lot, he is not the angry young man of yesteryear.

I tend to credit that to having a ref for a partner rather than being a graduate of the Mark Cossey School of Self-Discipline. :-)

It's a DERBY!!!! Just ask Lowy and Gallop. Derbies are the magic mix to take a dull league and make it better.

Waitakere last night was a snapshot of the bad side of the NZ game. Shouty English guy with a certificate as coach? Check

Team full of mercenaries on stupid money? Check

3rd rate imports on stupid money? Check

Inane comments and advice from the bench, like "get stuck in"? Check

A long way from the mainly local based team which started out 25 years ago.

On the flip side, well done Waibop. Look like a well-coached enthusiastic team playing for each other

Whats even weirder still is that this guy is the one with all the bells and whistles and supposed to be highly rated, but is the junior to Shelley whom has not much at all...

Ryan never had his back. Took exception to many things, and made his voice heard.

i think ryan, duncan o and several others had an ongoing running battle with smalley and herbert when mick waitt was the coach

happydays, love the 'get stuck in' comment.  it's right up there with 'kick it'

BTW, i think waibop were as good as waitak were bad

Ok I've just done some googling and seems I definitely have the wrong end of the stick. I always wondered why Nelsen supported a clown but I read it all wrong.

Missed out McGarry's goal for some reason...

^ Shame. It was a beaut.

Just watched my first NZFW, impressed with the coverage even though it's about as gimmicky as I thought it would be.

Overall thoughts - 

ACFC to win the league again, whoever can stop them will have to play out of their collective skins;

Waitakere United are complete sharke; &

Canterbury United pulled in what looked to be an excellent crowd. Hope it continues throughout the summer.

So I have to ask a legitimate question - are the referees poor?

The guy that did the WaiBOP TW game was terrible and missed 2 pens and 2 fouls on TW goals. He could not pick a nose for all his foul decisions were worth.

The guy that did TW v Canty missed a red

Tonights ref missed 2 red cards.

The football seems to be the equivalent of the referee performances so far. How is this happening? Are these guys being re-appointed? What is going on with the refs department and how they train refs?

I thought Campbell was ok

He wasn't great here on Sunday.

Highlights from last night 

The guy looked ok from the most part but Sam Mason-Smith was lucky not to break a leg and when you miss a clear last man challenge in the box, I think its hard to say that he had a good game

I'd give Campbell a pass.

Yes, he may have missed a bad tackle, but in a match like that he's making about 300 decisions (or non-decisions) in 90 minutes and it only takes a momentary distraction to miss something. In younger days i reffed a lot of youth and schoolboy games and learned how easy it can be to miss what seems obvious to others (and sometimes even yourself after you've had a moment to recap).

When we assess refs we must also acknowledge the nature of the job (instant decision-making) is that you are always going to disagree with the odd decision.

But the key question is whether you respect their judgement enough in general. In that respect I think most of the tops refs up north are good at the moment.

With the likes of Nick Waldron and Chris Kerr, you respect their right to make a call, even if you think it is wrong - because their percentages are generally very good.

Head coach at my club thought the best in the northern league this year was John Rowberry, though I would have said Waldron. One who we don't see much any more, but who was always great, is Mark Vincent.

On the subject of refs, I must admit I was surprised that Mark Owens was named NRFL referee of the year. No disrespect to Mark, a top WaiBop lad, but I am scratching my head as to how he could be ranked - by refereeing assessors - ahead of Waldron, Kerr, and Rowberry.

The footballing public probably deserve a bit of context around the award (considering Waldron must be 1 or 2 in NZ with Matt Conger).

Best referee in the NRFL this year was Allan something - a young NFF referee, makes good calls, has empathy with the players and the game - keen to learn and develop and listen to advice.

I get what you are saying. 

For me John Cameron was the best referee we ever produced. He could be a count and get away with it. I've only seen a couple of other referees that can do that and pull it off. Barry Tasker was guy not to fudge with despite small mans disease and I watched another guy whom was a squatish Scottish guy about 20 odd years ago. He was a bloody brilliant referee. I liked Fleety and another old crony Les Coffman.

The refs these days lack feel and the ability to just say 'fudge you, you are out of here' and just talk to players in a language which they are not going to get hoity toity about because their haircuts might fall the wrong way. The televised games I raised above, it needed that. The big South African lad Kevin Stoltenkamp was the best of this generation and was unique - I'm not making this up, he made a player go stand by the corner flag for a northern league game for 5 mins and got away with it (as legend has it). Some of these kids carry on like it's the FA Cup final and yet are only just out of nappies. If I coached TW, Corrales and Barcia, I'd sign them and leave them on the bench until they wanted to go out and PLAY football, not  moan and kick shades of shark out of others cause I can't actually say they are even close to being decent footballers.

To the current crop, I don't know many of the names other than a few - I know of Kerr and he is usually good but a bit different in some respects because their are days he does talk to players and days he just heaves them - depending on his mood but he missed 2 red cards last week and that is inexcusable. I know O'Leary whom I think happens to be bloody good but depends on which way the wind blows. I've seen Waldron and he looks like a young up and comer but Jesus he needs to swallow his whistle as its fudgeing awful. Every foul is a yellow card. I've seen the tall lanky guy Conger whom could not pick a red card as sure as I can scratch my ass and the three guys on TV, well the guy that did Waitak vs ACFC did a decent job, and lets not mention last night nor WaiBOP v TWs.

I get that it's a tough job and I am not ragging about that. It's the fact that some of these calls are quite obvious and not even close to 50/50 or contentious. Barcia shoulda gone last week. There was a last man tackle last night. It's hard to have confidence in these guys when they miss the obvious and it's the screamingly obvious that the refs of past woulda got right.

i think overall our referees are of an excellent standard

none of the refs on the tele have stood out to me as being poor.  sure a few missed things here and there but overidden by letting the game flw and getting most things right

also, you have to be careful when comparing referees from generations.  the 'leg-breaking challenge' of today was fairly standard in john cameron's day

Give me a fairly consistent NZ referee any day of the week compared with whistle-happy spectacle spoilers like Chris Beath.

Canterbury unlucky not to be drawing.

Do the City fans clap all game ?

We sing too.

It sounded good on TV and I think as long as you guys are doing pro ACFC chants, then sing it loud. It's when you start on the opponents (and this is too small a country where everyone knows everyone) then I get my knickers in a twist. Otherwise, keep it up!

To be fair, Jeff the only two songs we sang yesterday that weren't about ACFC were the one about Whenuapai losing and the final whistle one "A dragons supporters life is, no fun, they played the Blues and the Blues won..." - and that one only works if we win.

We even serenaded Michael White with his old Knights song, which got a laugh from the man himself.

Alvaro looks class. Also looks like Tade. 

What a pleasure to watch a game in a dedicated football ground, where you could see and hear spectators, rather than in the large, apparently empty and echoing stadiums of some of the previous games.   NZF and SKY have not done the game any favours by taking games away from the "homes" of the Clubs.