Eastern Suburbs AFC

Ehara ia i te kiwi, engari he pai ia ki te takaro whutuporo

Dan Bowkett?

100% This. 

Any ES news? Seems awfully quiet.

Kelvin Kalua is back.

Went to Suburbs vs AFC on Sunday. Not a super exciting game, finished 0-0, but a very interesting tactical battle for the season ahead.

ACFC lined up with 5 at the back, 3 in the middle and 2 strikers. ES lined up with a midfield diamond, 2 strikers, and extremely high L/R back.

When I first saw the line-ups I expected Suburbs to get absolutely done. I was very wrong - ACFC barely made 5 passes in the first 20 minutes and went on to struggle  to get out of their half for the rest of the game.

While ES enjoyed possession, and in my opinion deserved to win, they were pretty toothless in attack as well.

I have this theory that New Zealand has bred a whole bunch of generally intelligent and technical footballers. However, for some reason we don't really have any with vision or the ability to play a through ball. That was evident on Sunday.

Left thinking that ES are my favourite for the season.

Who's playing for ES this season? And for ACFC for that matter?

don't know about ES

this was the ACFC squad list for the friendly

AC (squad chosen from): Enaut ZUBIKARAI (GK), Adam MITCHELL, Brian KALTAK, Alfie ROGERS, Jordan VALE, Mario ILICH, Cam HOWIESON, Andrew BLAKE, Yousif ALI, Maro BONSU-MARO, Keegan LINDERBOOM, Luca TAYLOR (GK), Nick MILICICH, Nathan LOBO, Jackson WOODS, Bradley WILSON, Thomas DRILLIEN, Deandre VOLLEHOVEN.

add to that Myer Bevan and Logan Rogerson who were on their way back from Fiji also Mario Bilen, David Browne, Dylan Manickum , Angel Berlanga & Albert Rierra

Hm, forgot Myer, Logan and Browne weren't all there. That'll make them look much better and makes me think 5-3-2 won't be their preferred formation.

Sorry - outside of the Eastern Suburbs winter fill-ins, I recognised the new "big" players but I couldn't recall their names off the top of my head.

Old Danyon Drake was in goal and Reid Drake was in CM though.

drake, thomas, kalua, clissold, strong, drake, sinclair, hoyle, bueno, bowkett, gray

It's a Jose Figueira team. It'll be 3-4-3/3-5-2.

GK Zubikarai/Tracey/Brown

DF Mitchell/Kaltak/Berlanga/Blake/Rogers/Vale

MF Ilich/Howieson/Riera/Bilen/Ali

FW Bevan/Bonsu-Maro/Browne/Linderboom/Manickum/Rogerson

Won't be surprised if, from the youth teamers, Bradley Wilson (and maybe Nathan Lobo) work their way in.

They're shaping up to be the starting wingbacks for the NZ U17s.

These players were all involved for Eastern Suburbs on Sunday or will be.

GK Danyon Drake

DF Christian Gray/Alec Solomons/Kelvin Kalua/Adam Thomas/Dylan de Jong/Joel Clissold/Hayden Johns

MF Campbell Strong/Daniel Bowkett/Reid Drake/Leon van den Hoven/Ryan Verney

FW Stephen Hoyle/Martin Bueno/Kingsley Sinclair/Mohammed Awad

Thanks Andrew

Another interesting point was Kane Wintersgill was definitely in charge on the weekend. Not sure if someone was absent or that's it?

Pretty good achievement for someone in their early 20s.

So only 4 (Kalua, Thomas, Johns & Awad) left from the Championship winning team last season?  

Kingsley Sinclair had regular minutes too.

Can't quite remember their playing time last year but I'm pretty sure de Jong, Clissold, Strong, were all part of the squad as well.

Maybe some of Harry Edge, Withers, Wooldridge and Pijnaker are returning from the Swedish Experiment? 

Unless Torslanda end up in the relegation playoff spot, their season finishes this weekend.

OFC Champions League must be some sort of carrot.

Oh yes Clissold was later in the season

de Jong is a different one no?, Andre was involved last season, is Dylan related? 

Yeah, it's not Andre. I don't know if they're related actually, but Dylan was involved in ES's NRFL squad this year. Maybe my memory has failed me but I thought he was in the Handa squad last year as well but I might be wrong. Either way, not significant first team minutes in Handa.

They're unrelated. Dylan was training with the ES NL team at the end of the season, but wasn't registered to play.

Awad, Kalua and Strong the only ones returning who got decent playing time last season, plus Johns and Sinclair who were in the squad.

Is Justin Biega still there, backup keeper?

Kane Wintersgill?

Are things that bad that he is the/a coach of an NL side?

Hay's assistant according to his Linked In profile.

If it's his team it was very well set up and the players seemed to respect him.

Never met the kid in person but I'd wager that he understands a lot more than a large crop of dinosaurs out there.

Not great at talent spotting. When offered one of my boys on a platter, wasn't really interested.

think thats James Dunne as backup keeper

Wow....

I'm interested as to how he goes with a mens team

massive fan of him, ever since his Kristin days

He coached Birkenhead for 4 years.

I don't think he ever coached the Birkenhead First Team. Has assisted Paul Hobson on numerous occasions though

Game is currently on Sky Sports 7, whats up with that field it looks rather dry and we know Auckland gets plenty of rain throughout the year

Field look in a pretty sad state for this time of the year. Disgusting that National League teams have to play on that!!  Surely this sort of standard should not be allowed.

Field is extremely dry, short and very bumpy!

field looked fine live.  

What was the score?

1-0 Suburbs

1-0 to Suburbs

Thanks lads

I actually walked round the pitch last night and was at the game today. I haven't seen it on TV, but the field actually was pretty decent. Would absolutely prefer that over turf. 

I listened to someone kitted out in Suburbs gear saying they were disappointed with the Council in how it was prepared. Smelt a bit funny down there to me, like they had put manure down somewhere.