Western and Pacific Premierships

bigfudge wrote:
Thats a great look, interesting to see where all the teams are. Would be interesting to see how the junior team numbers correlate to this.

Park Island has always been a strange home for Marist football. I remember rumors of them playing that first Fed league season at Bluewater Stadium but that never happened. There were plans about a decade ago for that big Park Island revamp which never happened, it included plans to upgrade the Marist clubrooms and put two footy pitches behind the rugby pitches in Tremain field (now impossible with the Magpies facility). The football will always be second fiddle there unfortunately. 

hotchips wrote:
Results from the West

PNU Reserves 9 Marist Reserves 2
NPBHS 1 FC Western Reserves 2
Takaro 2 Feilding 1
Levin 0 Whanganui Athletic 4
Moturoa 4 NP Rangers 1

Marist might be in for a long season from the sounds of it.

Bootl3gger wrote:

 hotchips wrote:
Results from the West

PNU Reserves 9 Marist Reserves 2
NPBHS 1 FC Western Reserves 2
Takaro 2 Feilding 1
Levin 0 Whanganui Athletic 4
Moturoa 4 NP Rangers 1

Marist might be in for a long season from the sounds of it.

Well Done to Whanganui Athletic another dominant performance and result I heard despite a terrible pitch. Didn’t see the game as I was playing for the rockets. 

3 players U18 in the starting lineup and another 2 on the bench. Aza is a great coach for our club. Hope they stick it to you people who try bring them down telling lies jealousy is a terrible thing 

hotchips wrote:

 Bootl3gger wrote:

 hotchips wrote:
Results from the West

PNU Reserves 9 Marist Reserves 2
NPBHS 1 FC Western Reserves 2
Takaro 2 Feilding 1
Levin 0 Whanganui Athletic 4
Moturoa 4 NP Rangers 1

Marist might be in for a long season from the sounds of it.

Well Done to Whanganui Athletic another dominant performance and result I heard despite a terrible pitch. Didn’t see the game as I was playing for the rockets. 

3 players U18 in the starting lineup and another 2 on the bench. Aza is a great coach for our club. Hope they stick it to you people who try bring them down telling lies jealousy is a terrible thing 

What happened to your ressies getting pumped 12-1 by Takaro? 

Donnelly Park must have gone rapidly downhill as it was the best grass surface in the league bar none last season. 

Bootl3gger wrote:

 hotchips wrote:

 Bootl3gger wrote:

 hotchips wrote:
Results from the West

PNU Reserves 9 Marist Reserves 2
NPBHS 1 FC Western Reserves 2
Takaro 2 Feilding 1
Levin 0 Whanganui Athletic 4
Moturoa 4 NP Rangers 1

Marist might be in for a long season from the sounds of it.

Well Done to Whanganui Athletic another dominant performance and result I heard despite a terrible pitch. Didn’t see the game as I was playing for the rockets. 

3 players U18 in the starting lineup and another 2 on the bench. Aza is a great coach for our club. Hope they stick it to you people who try bring them down telling lies jealousy is a terrible thing 

What happened to your ressies getting pumped 12-1 by Takaro? 

Donnelly Park must have gone rapidly downhill as it was the best grass surface in the league bar none last season. 





 

The young players from last seasons reserves have moved up and have been playing for the first team. So the old lions team (3rd team) is pretty much the reserves now and they’re real young.

For someone with such a big opinion about Athletic you sure seem to know nothing about us.

hotchips wrote:
Moving on, this weeks games in the West:

NP Rangers vs PNU Reserves, Merrilands, Friday 1pm
Big defeat for Rangers and a big win for PNU last week, but still hard to call. Its a tough trip to the naki and it's really hard to read anything into a big win over a basketcase in Marist. Rangers to bounce back with a win.

Marist Reserves vs NPBHS, Skoglund, Saturday 1230pm
Marist look in real trouble after their defeat this past week. Boys High will be well coached and their better players from last year seem to still be there. Boys High win

FC Western Reserves vs Takaro, Lynmouth Park, Saturday 245pm
Both teams with tight wins last week. Takaro struggled badly with trips to New Plymouth last year, can't see anything other than an FC Western win here

Whanganui Athletic vs Moturoa, Wembley, Saturday 245pm
Big wins for both last week, maybe the two teams to watch this season. Bit of drama around this one last year, will be an interesting battle. Athletic to win.

Feilding vs Levin, Timona Park, Saturday 245pm
Tight preseason battle between these two, could take a moment of magic to seperate them, going for a draw.

mraotxt2 wrote:

 hotchips wrote:
Moving on, this weeks games in the West:

NP Rangers vs PNU Reserves, Merrilands, Friday 1pm
Big defeat for Rangers and a big win for PNU last week, but still hard to call. Its a tough trip to the naki and it's really hard to read anything into a big win over a basketcase in Marist. Rangers to bounce back with a win.

Marist Reserves vs NPBHS, Skoglund, Saturday 1230pm
Marist look in real trouble after their defeat this past week. Boys High will be well coached and their better players from last year seem to still be there. Boys High win

FC Western Reserves vs Takaro, Lynmouth Park, Saturday 245pm
Both teams with tight wins last week. Takaro struggled badly with trips to New Plymouth last year, can't see anything other than an FC Western win here

Whanganui Athletic vs Moturoa, Wembley, Saturday 245pm
Big wins for both last week, maybe the two teams to watch this season. Bit of drama around this one last year, will be an interesting battle. Athletic to win.

Feilding vs Levin, Timona Park, Saturday 245pm
Tight preseason battle between these two, could take a moment of magic to seperate them, going for a draw.

Do you think many of the FC Western first team played in their opening fixture? 

They could be two different sides last year. Their Fed cup team last season was a hybrid of their CL2 team and their first team. I wonder if they did similar for game one?

bigfudge wrote:
What have they done to rub clubs up the wrong way? Poaching the odd player I'd understand tbf. I'm still pretty shocked that Lynmouth reaches the standards for Central League grounds as well tbf. Still nice to see some Central Football representation though.

hotchips wrote:

 bigfudge wrote:
What have they done to rub clubs up the wrong way? Poaching the odd player I'd understand tbf. I'm still pretty shocked that Lynmouth reaches the standards for Central League grounds as well tbf. Still nice to see some Central Football representation though.

It was explained to me that the "traditional" clubs lose their juniors to Boys High for high school footy, then there's a bit of a pipeline from there to FC Western. There's a fair few lads floating around who've been discarded by Western so that probably plays into it. 

mraotxt2 wrote:

 hotchips wrote:

 bigfudge wrote:
What have they done to rub clubs up the wrong way? Poaching the odd player I'd understand tbf. I'm still pretty shocked that Lynmouth reaches the standards for Central League grounds as well tbf. Still nice to see some Central Football representation though.

It was explained to me that the "traditional" clubs lose their juniors to Boys High for high school footy, then there's a bit of a pipeline from there to FC Western. There's a fair few lads floating around who've been discarded by Western so that probably plays into it. 

Sounds a fair bit like Napier city in the east. It’s possibly the cost of having a CL side in the region? 

hotchips wrote:
Some crazy scorelines in the West

NP Rangers 2 PNU Reserves 0
Marist Reserves 0 NPBHS 10
FC Western 2 Takaro 1
Whanganui Athletic 9 Moturoa 0
Feilding 0 Levin 5

bigfudge wrote:
This weeks games in the East: 

Gisborne United vs Napier City Rovers Reserves, Harry Barker Reserve, Sat 12:45pm
Another big win for United last week against Port Hill, aided by a red card for Port but again looking very strong. Rovers with a disappointing loss at home against Thistle, looked like no first team players involved and cant imagine any will be dropping down for an away game in Gizzy. United to win big again.

Havelock North Wanderers vs Gisborne Thistle, Guthrie Park, Sat 1pm
Wanderers really kicking off their season against Rangers, Thistle with an impressive away win, will be interesting to see how they back it up against a strong Havelock side. Would back Havelock to win this one.

Port Hill United vs Taradale Reserves, Marewa Park, Sat 3pm
Port with a tough away day in Gisborne, Taradale with a hectic close loss to Vale. Leaning towards Dale ressies getting the win here today.

Maycenvale United vs Western Rangers, Mitre 10 Sports Park, Sat 3pm
Rangers struggling early on and already on their 3rd coach of the season. Vale picking up their second dramatic win of the season. Would be surprised to see anything other than a Vale win in this Hastings derby game.

Tyler wrote:
How come Marist are having such a hard time attracting players? What’s the Goss?

hotchips wrote:
This is going to be lengthy so buckle up!

In this case it's more that a few chickens are coming home to roost with Marist. There seems to be a lot of resentment around the DoF being brought in from overseas on a full-time salary when lower down the club they feed off scraps.

Very aggressive in headhunting from other clubs in the past, as well as having by far the largest number of teams and players in the region, they're not very well liked by everyone else. Combine that with the Director of Football deciding to clean house and tell a bunch of players and coaches they are not needed and it's a recipe for disaster. Bit of a closed shop in their 1st team so it's known that pathways are almost non-existent so it's not super attractive to join them lower down the grades. 

Their women's section is fucked. Lost a bunch of 1st team players to PNU, overseas, and just left the game. Their Reserves were supposed to be part of the new Fed League, but they must have realised they would be uncompetitive so they pulled out. Then they were part of the Manawatu Championship but couldn't get through preseason friendlies without social grade players, and basically disbanded their Reserve team.

On the men's side, they got rid of their Reserves and third team coaches, and all 99% of the players went with those blokes to Takaro. Takaro's reserve team in the Manawatu Champs is basically last years Marist Reserves team from Western Prems. A couple of social grade teams have also switched over to Takaro. Marist have gone from having teams in every division, with multiple teams in most of the social grades, to not even having teams in the Champs and Div 2. Current Reserve team in the Prems are basically a bunch of schoolkids from their academy, which has been overtaken by PNU.

Takaro have overtaken them now, and Feilding are very close behind them in terms of numbers. 



 

bigfudge wrote:
It was always gonna be interesting to see how an amalgamation would work in Central Football. Seemed like it had definitely been on the cards for years though with Palmy football stagnating for a bit, didn't realise about the discontent bubbling beneath the surface. 

hotchips wrote:
I'll try and be as unbiased as possible, be interesting if you guys can guess what club I am at when I finish 🤣