Hawke's Bay griping.

Hawke's Bay griping.

"SOMETHING really ought to be done about the obvious disparity between Waitakere United, Auckland City and the rest the franchises in the New Zealand Football Championship. By virtue of playing in the O-League and, as a result, the World Club Championship, those two teams are literally on another financial plane to outfits like our own Hawke's Bay United. Do we really want a competition like the English Premier League, where the race for the title has become the sole domain of Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, with only fellow Champions League regular Liverpool capable of mounting a challenge? "

What do they want everyone to be as bad as they are. Seriously it is up to all the other franchises to get up to speed. TW have done it this year, Manawatu did it last year, Canterbury the year before - it can be done you just need to have a bit of nous and try and continually be the best. You might not make it but at least you will get close.

I am not a big Gould fan as he continually seems to think the world is against him. He got beat 2-0 on the weekend and all i read in the paper was how there were in the game until they had a man sent off. Both Waitak and Auckland have won a man short this year, in fact City had 2 short against otago and still managed to win.

Shut up or jump in the fire is what I say, don't complain

Manawatu were good for 2 years, they were excellent in that 2nd season. It's only now they've gone off the deep end.

Gould has alot of problems,  Players don't respect him and Hawkes Bays best results always seem to come when he is overseas and someone else is looking after the team.  He has a bad temper and cannot handle the pressure that comes with coaching.  In the hawkes Bay he is loved by the admin for his history and revired by the players because of the way he acts.  tigers2008-04-02 13:16:06

As an aside, this would be a Hawko Bayvian if the A-League commentators had anything to do with it.

John is right. They were in the game until Ian Hogg was sent off. What the paper also doesn't tell ya is that is was a terrible tackle and he deserved to go. So really, the issue is a discipline one which comes back to the coach teaching his players better.

Auckland & Waitakere have set the benchmark and whilst we can be envious of their financial position their FIFA monies are well deserved by winning, the trust funding they get is much better than most but good on them.

The challenge the rest of us face is how committed are we to compete with them? For me I think the lack of promotion relegation is a problem as in any given year one franchise can have a crack and go all out after the Aucklanders but equally you can give up and not even try and keep your place in the league.

Ultimately the league itself will only improve with ambition within each franchise and a desire to do better than the Aucks have done so far and also create consequences for not competing.

Its a problem with the A league and the NZFC. I've heard players from both leagues discussing how performance doesn't matter because their are no consequences and for me thats a problem.

Therefore don't blete about the advantages the Aucks have we must go out and have a crack at them!

No point in having a shot at how well the two Ak clubs have done even though they can afford to cherry pick influential players each year from other teams. Better option is to compete and aspire or better their current standard.

Get relegation in there. If a team is bottom then make them play off against strong franchises from other regions and groups. It is truly short sighted in an amateur game to not have promotion/relegation as a successful club can be achieved through proper structure and coaching because none of the players are so much better than any other.

If you were a player and Gould asked you to play for Napier and then Jacobs or Milicich came asking the same question, which way would you go? Success breeds success and players want to be coached to win. Relegation would mean that clubs at the bottom would have to work immensely hard to ensure it wasn't them. Then Canterbury wouldnt "build for the future" and Otago would have sorted themselves out 2 seasons ago.

No promotion/relegation is just wrong - if you want to keep standards high then only allow teams in who fulfill the off-field criteria. The rules are there just enforce them. That includes towards the likes of Waitakere who didnt have a covered stand until late this season.

The league itself needs to be run independently of NZFootball

I suspect that FIFA wouldn't recognise the league if it wasn't run by the country's national football association.