Mainland Premier League

I never have.  Why in particular this year?

Now I see what you mean:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/sport/9748738/Falcons-star-Guardiola-kicked-out-of-team

CashTech v Selwyn @ ASB Park 12pm KO Sunday. 

Runs in the family?

No, the Black Caps apparently.

Megaloz!! Omar isnt exactly a hard man!  The reason suburbs will be difficult this year is recruiting, coaching, and they seem to be very motivated.  

Seven clubs will be chasing their inaugural PFL title win with four clubs – Christchurch United, Halswell, Nelson Suburbs and Western all having new coaches.

Christchurch United (The Rams) are back in the top league after they won promotion at the expense of relegated Nomads. At the helm of The Rams this season is UEFA licence holder, Richard Herdman - despite the rumours doing the rounds is not related to Christchurch United great, and former coach from the glory days of the old national league days, Brian Hardman (note the different spelling).

Herdman's squad is built around the bulk of the players that earned the promotion, “As the club looks to grow and development from within. We have a great team culture here and we owe it to the players that want to be at the club, rather than players who want to come here because we are now in the top league”.

“Everyone has been working hard pre-season and we will be looking to play a brand of football that is fitting for the league we are playing in”, added the quietly spoken Herdman.

The Rams will play their home games at ASB Football Park and host Ferrymead Bays in the opening round and then have a crack at the Hurley Challenge Shield when they take on holders and current MPFL champions Cashmere Technical.

Graeme Atkinson will be in charge at Halswell United but he's yet to arrive from England. He brings a lot of experience to the club, having been a pro footballer with over 300 senior games himself. Nearly half of those games were for Hull in the early 90’s.

The Hawks will also have two English imports in their playing squad, Josh Smith and James Ollerhead. Ollerhead the younger of the two and Matt Smith back for another season after indicating that he was going to retire.

Halswell will be looking for a better season in 2015 after spending the latter half of the last season battling to avoid the wooden spoon.

Croatian born, Davor Tavich, will be joining Ben Wright as co-coach at three time champions Nelson Suburbs. Suburbs had a poor finish to the end of last season, losing five of their last six games but still managed to finish in fourth place.

Suburbs welcomes back keeper Coey Turipa, after a season in the Central League and Mark Johnston, after a rugby hiatus which should strengthen the squad. Many young players from the Falcon’s side who played in the ASB National Youth League are representing Suburbs this winter. Coach Tavich knows plenty of these players after having coached the Falcons when they first competed in NYL.

Shane Rose takes over the clip board at Western and will be looking to build on their runner-up spot last season. Western will go onto their campaign without their two top scorers from last season Alex Pak and Geoff MacIntyre who are both currently overseas. This no doubt will leave a big gap after scoring 26 goals between them.

Will Shillito (ex Nomads) and Chris Fernando from Roslyn Wakari, Dunedin have signed for Western.

Coastal Spirit have retained the bulk of their squad from last season as well as signing the experienced Otago rep, Tim Dunn from Mosgiel and Mohamed Khalifa from Western and will again be coached by Xavier Morin.

Coastal Spirit be looking to push into the top half of the table this season.

University are still completing their squad. They look to play an attacking brand of football and should have gained from their experience of being back in the top flight last season where they pushed all sides but somehow managed to finish in seven place. Their keeper from last season Lee Hinton has moved to Waimakariri United and is likely to be replaced by Pieter Taco Bierema.

Ferrymead Bays should be pressing for a record fifth title and have picked up several players with MPFL experience including Craig Harrison transferring from Halswell, Preston Bell (Nomads) and Jacob Coy (Western), with several other signings likey to come in from Canterbury United.

Back to back champions Cashmere Technical appear to have the bulk of their squad back. However striker Ash Wellbourn is heading off on an OE early in the season and work commitments has taken midfielder Cory Mitchell already up to Hamilton. Cashmere Technical should have enough depth to push for a record third title on the bounce

well done to Brando and coach curry in winning the Waimak pre season final today

Lads played well and bounced back from last week 

Hear Coastal defeated Halswell 6 - 0 today.

Parklands beat Halswell reserves 1-0 to finish 3rd out at Waimak Tourney

Uni beat Ferrymead 2-1 and Western beat a 10 man Chch United 1-0 Can give a small match report for both if anyone desires.

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CashTech v Selwyn @ ASB Park 12pm KO Sunday. 

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Uni vs Parklands PDL afterwards.

I'd prefer a report on the Coastal thrashing!  But still keen to hear, fire away.

Cashmere Technical came from a goal down to defeat Selwyn 4 - 1 earlier today.

Uni dominated the first half of the game against ferrymead, Fmead not able to keep possession with the high pressing game of Uni. Caleb Baker scored Uni's first after a free kick was sent over from the right wing, flicked on and overhead kicked the ball over the keeper who had come out and into the net. Hamish Foy scored Uni's second after beating 3 players he slotted it into the bottom corner past the keeper. Ferrymead came out stronger in the second half leading to a very even half. Ferrymead came back with a goal from a well worked counter attack, not sure who finished it. Last 7 minutes Uni seemed to panic and lost their passing game and shape but were able to hold on. Western went 1-0 up relatively early in the first half, didn't see the goal. Horror challenge by the United captain led to a red card but the Western team asked to just sub him off but were made to play against 10 men. Following the sending off in the second half Western had plenty of chances but were unable to convert them into goals including 3 headers over the bar and a missed one on one.

Looking forward to the season kicking off this weekend! Does the MPL reserve league kick off this weekend too or does it start later?

No it starts with everyone else. 

Div 1 starts Saturday.

Rest of seniors kick-off 11th April

Any surprises going to pop up on the transfer page this week now Canty Utd is over?

I'm too scared to look.

Annoyed Dante has shifted.

Why would you be annoyed tht he has shifted from Shirley boys to Cash Tech?

Mike Walker a good pick up by Nomads plus the return of a couple of players from Auckland football.

Maybe in better shape than expected once all are on the park and this may have helped keep last years club POY from moving to FC.

Will the new executives ragime about players paying for Y & R cards come back to hurt the chances of promotion when players pull out rather than have to pay for cards.

KB [when at Nomads] always had a fund to dip into for players card fines and I've never had to pay for them when playing at either Saturday or Sunday League clubs.

That was what clubs used to sell raffles for as cards can be got by any team that gets an appointed ref.

Dumb way to try and start to get a team promoted back to MPL, maybe that's why they got relegated last year too many not putting the foot in when needed, just leave it to someone else. 

Has been mentioned that golf will be the go on Saturday avos if it gets a bit expensive and as we've seen refs like keeping Mainlands bank balance growing just for sneezing out loud

No Canterbury United transferred entered as yet. Plenty of pending transfers, some now going back for a week or two so likely to few players trying to hunt out gear or play any outing standing monies to their former club before they can run out for their new club.  

Nothings been updated on the transfer website since the 12th...

As a player under Davor last year I would say that Suburbs will do well this year, certainly better than last year. He works his players hard and doesn't hold a grudge - see Guardiola situation. Encourages an attaking, possession based game. He took us (Nelson College 1st XI) pretty far in his first season in charge, as we won Div 1,  Price Charity (knockout) Cup in Nelson, and finished 7th at nationals (beating both AGs, and MAGs twice). Pretty big achievements considering how young our squad was. Suburbs have recruited well, and definitely a team to watch this year.

Gareth Turnbull named as NZ Under 17 Women's coach:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/67447447/gareth-turnbull-named-nz-womens-under17-football-coach

All the updated applications are on there now

Prediction for Sat's 1st round games:

Nomads 6 Waimak 1,  Selwyn 10 Ferrymead 0, 

ChCh Utd 2 Ferrymead 5,  Nelson 5 University 0,  Cash Tech 5 Halswell 3, Coastal 2 Western 4

Those are some high scores!

My predictions: 

Ferrymead 4 - 1 Chch Utd

Uni 2 - 2 Nelson

Tech 4 - 0 Halswell

Western 1 - 1 Coastal 

Div1:

Waimak 1 - 1 Nomads

Selwyn 5 - 1 Ferrymead

Bays  5 Chch 0

Uni 1 Nelson 3

CTFC 6 Halswell 0

Coastal 2 Western 1

well if it works for all parties then well done but it still seems a bit silly to have nomads playing that far from home.

on another note all senior mens draws are up. 4x uni teams and 2x parklands in PDL while div 6 has 14 teams!

That's Mental - How do you have so many teams in?  Might as well introduce a Div 7 as well and split it from the get go.

I'm hoping there's an error in our league, Masters Div 3. It's an 8 team league yet they have two teams down to have a bye every week meaning we're down for 4 byes in an 18 week league??????