Some hot takes from Auckland City vs Takapuna:
Takapuna were handy... they will certainly take more scalps throughout the season. I reckon they'll stay up. Their goal was a pretty niece strike. They were getting a bit frustrated at the referee which I thought was unfounded. Takapuna spent a lot of time getting tight to Auckland players, inevitably leading to little nibbles and trips. The referee could most of these are Taka got angrier and angrier. Thought they just needed to keep doing what they were doing...
With that said, Some of the Takapuna supporters (I think their reserve team) were totally out of line at what they were yelling at the referee.
Kilkolly upfront for Auckland was totally outplayed by the mullet defending him. Tried to get physical and lost that battle. Tried to get cheeky (pushing as corners came in, then diving) and lost that battle as well. And one moment in the second half, on a breakaway with plenty of room got chased down by his defender as well.
Granted I am no tactical mastermind, but I thought the point of relentless passing football was to move the defence around and eventually isolate good players 1v1 with defenders. It was frustrating wathcing ACDC palyers regularly isolate a defender, 1v1 on edge of box sort of thing, and not have the attacker try to take the player on.
As no one else was interested in trying to make something happen... it took 60 minutes and the 19 year old Nathan Lobo from left-back to finally attack a player... and sure enough gets rewarded for it.