Southern Football (incl Southern United) (Part 2)

Easy on Langer

Just watched the highlights. Can someone explain to me how Rowbury is a ref? Shocking calls from him.

To be fair, I'm a bit stumped by that. Both were penalties.
Its not the 1st time Southern has seen Clapham yet he was given 20y of space all day with no one up his arse. Considering how good he is at this level, thats probably more shocking as much as it is inept.

I'm quite surprised that teams do not stick a man on him and man mark him out of the game. You sacrifice a player but you pretty much shut down Canty.

Southern were just too deep, back four hardly made it to half way during the game.

If Southern haven't spent every training session this week on defending basics then they will finish bottom of the league again.

As has been stated by others inept defending but for me at under 12s never mind at this level.

Get a better body position and tackle when you have to win the ball not when you take the brain out of gear.

The Southern #9 just let AC walk by him for his second goal, no willing or want to get stuck in and make it hard by that Southern player was there.

Make it hard for the other team to win the game don't just roll over with some crap defending. 

How Canterbury gifted you a goal was sloppy play when they should've been making Southern work to get the ball.

Hope both teams can get a few points in Auckland this weekend. 

i think some of the assessments on southern here are a bit harsh

canterbury are a very good team who play at a fast tempo

and i thought your team showed plenty of promise and tried to play the game in the right way

Think this is a bit harsh. 1st one was definitely a pen. 2nd was less obvious but still a pen for me.  

Also in my view the best man manager in the league.

Both clear penalties no doubt about it. Hard to tell at ground. But TV highlights showed the ref got them both right.

Starting 11: Little, Howard, Ferguson,Last, Higgins, Ledwith, O'Keffe, McPhail, Kessell, Kinghorn, Mulligan

Bench: Hogan, Ridden, Cosgrove, Rodeka

Wow some heads have rolled after last week's showing.  This coach has balls for sure, but I think a big loss could follow with that line up. 

Seems like O'Reilly really has some nouse. Good on him having the courage to sub out the players who didn't perform last week. That's how it should be. Great result, especially without Molloy, unlucky not to hold out for 3 points. Keep it up lads.

Great result away from home - when was the last time we did that?  I was pretty worried beforehand but he did show balls dropping Hogan and Ridden - he's still learning about the players no question so things are going to get better.

Watching the game last week, looked like some of the local guys were lacking in tactical discipline? Seemed to be a few positional issues and a little bit of chasing the ball. Some of the lesser known players might not have those issues.

For those guys coming from the Cavvy team they will take a while to adjust to playing with more discipline/awareness after having played for a team this year that was far better than anyone they played. 

Don't think Caversham won every game, so can't have been far better than anyone else they played.

If you are talking SPL then that is not a contest outside top 3 teams.

18 from 18 and won the league by fourteen points.

Dunedin Technical A.F.C. is seeking a suitable applicant for the position of 2nd Team (Division One) coach for the 2017 season. Applicants must be prepared to adhere to the standards as invoked by the New Zealand Football Quality Club Mark. 

Expressions of interest with details of experience, skills and attributes can be made to Andrew Douglas: coaching@dunedintechnical.nz
Applications close 5 December 2016.

Any news on who is taking Caversham next season?

Really sad news filtered in over the weekend of the passing of Brent Best. 'Besty' was a bit of a character, I know he (like most officials) used to cop a bit of stick from the sideline but he was obviously pretty darn good at what he did. You don't go to World Cup otherwise. Always a good bugger to have a yarn with over a beer. He was only 48. RIP Besty.

Piney did a little tribute to him during the Nix game on Saturday night.

Bit harsh but probably true

there's a few characters out there but there's definitely a few good guys and good footballers too !

As Connor McGregor said today we just don't give a fck!

The Winter season is over Brookside. In other news Southern United have Auckland City this weekend. C'mon lads!

He has been given an opportunity and taken it......Fair play and good on him. I would imagine hes doing the business in training and thriving under the system....This is the player development we should be supporting. Not doubting our local lads ability. 

Question: How would you fair in the national league.........?

Its good to see a team being coached and playing with realistic expectations. Baby steps, patience and Southern might just get there in the next couple of years.

How is this year any different from the previous 3 - 5 ? If we are being objective, the other coaches have focused on local players, with a particular style of play that has a long term focus. They may have had their weaknesses but how do we know this guy is better, only 3 games in? 

I am not assuming he is just like every other coach, but would be good to know what is different from previous Southern seasons. 

Can someone tell me why we're so fudgeing shark? Wow, we lost 4–0 to a club that wasn't in the league last season. I'm shocked, I tell you shocked! In case you can't tell, that's sarcasm. Losing to a new club isn't surprising in the least. We're fudgeing shark, down south we play shockingly bad football known as long throws and hoofball. Why are our coaches always fudgeing shockingly bad?

Why are all the local players so fudgeing bad? Why are they always the worst in the league? There are regions with less population that play much better football (Tasman, Hawke's Bay).

Why don't they put us out of our misery and fudgeing kick us out already? They kicked YoungHeart Manawatu for being shark, and we're arguably worse than them. Before you reply angrily, I will always, always support Southern United and go to several matches every season but it's hard to get behind the team when we care more about the team than the management and players do. Or maybe they're just awful, and don't deserve to be playing at the top division of football in this country. How many Southern players would be able play for another team?

1 point after 5 matches. I am so surprised!!

I'll admit it, this is one more point and better goal difference than I expected from us this season at this stage: (link to image)

But what matters is points on the table and 1 point means fudge all. 1 point isn't much different from 0 points. Regarding my prediction above: I thought we'd be able to do something against the Phoenix Reserves this weekend, but I guess probably not given they've just defeated Auckland City (something which will always be a pipe dream for us Southern fans). 

There you go, rant over. Go ahead, say I'm not a fan. But I am and always will be and am extremely disappointed at the constant never-ending mediocrity that surrounds Southern United.

Where will our first win of the season come from? Hawke's Bay in round 8? Tasman in round 9? Neither? Will we even get a win this season.

Maybe it's just too cold. Seriously: the glam clubs get Mediterranean, Asian, Latin American and African imports. You guys get Irishmen, no disrespect to Ireland. But maybe it's like the Nix vs the Aussie clubs; Dunners isn't such a sexy lifestyle option, unless you really like tours of a chocolate factory and people pretending to be Scottish.

(Sorry if my tongue in cheek doesn't come across, meant in all friendship!)

It's a summer league. It shouldn't be cold in summer (looks outside and sighs).

Maybe we should play games through Central and not in Invercargill. That would be more appealing.

You do have to wonder what the KPI's of Southern United are.

Being someone who is newish to town I had heard that some of the clubs here had ideas above their stations and think they are a wee bit better than they are which feeds through to some club members who seem to think the town is big enough to have proper rivalries. This thread makes sad reading with people letting club bias get in the way of trying to grow the sport locally. Cavy and Tech are small time really and the only way the sport will grow is getting behind Southern Utd. The irish lads seem to have bought some hunger to the squad and they seemed genuinely gutted to lose tonight and I haven't seen that before with the usual big noters who pepper the squad.I think they will continue to improve and I am sure Danny Furlong will add plenty of goals for remainder of season. 

Drab from Southern again. Winless and looks like it may continue. If Tennessee is the best we can offer going forward...we may aswell pack in 

May have been a wee bit harsh...but let's have it right. The new imports aren't up to much. Southern to have the worst season in years

I mentioned Cavy and Tech because I have read these pages and heard from other people in the football community how there seems to be this attitude in the past around Southern United that when Murray was the coach he was undermined in a few different ways by tech players and vice versa when Fridge was the coach. Too much chatter around it not to have an element of truth to it.

Reading these pages it seems some on here take their local football allegiance very seriously which is ridiculous for a small town. Until people are all pulling in the same direction the rest of the community will not take us seriously as a sport. With the number of local senior players we have our national league team should be getting crowds of around 500 minimum every time they play but they don't because it is easier to be a negative plum and not show up than it is to go along and support them like "proper" football fans do everywhere else. In short I am sure some of the people locally like their own clubs more than they do the sport.

Football South needs to address the winter competition to include South Canterbury, bring back Queenstown and Invercargill and start becoming serious about football. if Southern United wants to progress then it will take all the regions to increse the quailty of thire competitions.

I suggest you re read my post. I don't suggest anywhere that people should have a stronger tie to Southern than their winter club. I have suggested that peoples allegiances to their winter clubs tend to override their want to get along to Southern United games. Two different things.Winter clubs are the absolute hearbeat of the game and they all need to be strong to help the sport grow. What I am saying is Southern could do with some of this seemingly parochial support being directed their way this summer. After all this is not the Southern Utd of previous years and more importantly we all have a stake in the club doing well through our subs. 

You seem a little defensive rather than willing to engage.