Which NZFC players do you think can cut it in the A League?
I'd suggest Barron, Sigmund and Hay. Maybe Menapi and
Totori.
I still reckon Keryn Jordan is worth a look
how about grant young? haven't seen auckland play in the
flesh this year. he looked great on telly in japan.
We have to be careful though with the overseas player rules.
We really need the 4 imports to be 4 of our best players so we
should probably be targeting kiwis from the NZFC. Totori may
be an exception, although he may get found out at a higher level,
he basically refuses to pass for Manawatu until he has scored!
Normo's coming home
So, that leaves us with Crouch and 3 other foreigners then...
Is wellington going to keep some of the orginal players from the
auckland team?
has wylie been injured this season? hasn't featured much and hone
fowler and mickael munday seem to play more
Yeah, Hasnt featured much but has alot of natural talent which
Ricki can bring out in him.
Honestly lads, Danny Hay's time has well and truly been and
gone. He was embarassing in White this week.
Grant Young is on the far side of 35, I doubt he's got a season of professional football in him anymore.
Hard News2007-03-29 18:55:47
Grant Young is on the far side of 35, I doubt he's got a season of professional football in him anymore.
Hard News2007-03-29 18:55:47
yeah, good player alright. i really rate sigmund too and he's
probably a bit quicker that the lads we have in the team right now.
did anyone see the nz a games against tahiti? i hear
sigmund was excellent. how did the mmanawatu boys go?
Good call. Wellington dont need him. Bunce and Tambouras to start,
Vicelich can play there if need be.
Michael Boxall as a young backup in the back pair.
I agree with Hard News, time for Danny Hay to hang up the
Professional Football boots! He was woefull in
the white shirt this week.
I think we need to acknowledge the massive gap in standard between
the NZFC and the A-League. Basically we all agree that
we DON'T want Danny Hay playing for the Phoenix and yet he bosses
these NZFC games week in week out. This may be a bit out of
left field but Blair Scoullar? He was pretty good for Otago
in 05/06
Neither time I watched him this season was he in the same realm as
bossing the game.
Hell, he even scored Wellingtons goal for them here, and but for a blind assistant referee (I mean, how do you miss Danny Hay standing 4 feet in front of the player, playing him on-side ?) would have played Halstead on-side giving Team Welly a deserved win.
The step up is huge, but if we don't take a punt on some of those we suspect can make it they will never get a chance to move on. Meanwhile if we rely on the elderly and infirmed who aren't even willing to commit to relocating aren't we just locking ourselves in to the past ?
I mean, Danny was part of the Knights first season defence which set all sorts of records for shipping goals.
Hard News2007-03-29 22:12:07
Hell, he even scored Wellingtons goal for them here, and but for a blind assistant referee (I mean, how do you miss Danny Hay standing 4 feet in front of the player, playing him on-side ?) would have played Halstead on-side giving Team Welly a deserved win.
The step up is huge, but if we don't take a punt on some of those we suspect can make it they will never get a chance to move on. Meanwhile if we rely on the elderly and infirmed who aren't even willing to commit to relocating aren't we just locking ourselves in to the past ?
I mean, Danny was part of the Knights first season defence which set all sorts of records for shipping goals.
Hard News2007-03-29 22:12:07
Let's focus on bringing some of these other guys home like the aussies have done, I'm not sure there is one player in the NZFC who is of a quality to start for an A-League club. We have to target players who can win us this title, not just be competitive!
We need to be careful that we don't just assume because someone has
an overseas contract they are better though. Andy Barron is 5
times the player Jeremy Christie is, as an example.
Andy Barron should the first NZFC player signed.
Players like Schollar, Wylie, Totori, Sigmund will be looked
at by Ricki to fill up the squad numbers.
Barron, Totori, and Steven Gully
A dog with a bone :)
Benjamin Totori with his Solomon Islander cavalier approach needs
to be signed. I'm sure he has the pace to get past a number
of A-League defences. Menapi may be ok but you need to
consider the number of foreign player positions that are available
(4).
Yeah the foreigner rule stops us a little bit. Is Ricki going to take the risk of Totori whos ability might not go past the standard of the NZFC or use all 4 spots on European/Asian/African imports.
For mine Barron is a must, Sigmund not to far behind. DannyPHOENIX2007-03-30 19:28:22I've never seen any NZFC footage before all I know is Totori is
always banging them in, sign him up! I'm a Sydney fan and I
wouldn't mind Sydney taking a look at him I mean sure 22 goals in
the NZFC but it isn't exactly miles behind the A-League
Totori scores a ridiculous number of goals. He must be worth a flutter
They're all overseas players...we definitely need a centre
midfielder and a striker minimum from our overseas
contingent. Totori is the only one I'd consider...
With you Go On! Totori must be worth a punt but we can get better
than Menapi and Suri in Aus or bringing Kiwi's home.
Incidentally, we can get better than Hay in Capital 13.
Hard News2007-03-30 22:17:16
Incidentally, we can get better than Hay in Capital 13.
Hard News2007-03-30 22:17:16
Sign Barron, and Sigmund, and I agree about Hay, he's had his time,
and i'm not confident with someone who wants to commute. For this
to work we need total committment, rather than hay's idea of flying
down on Thursday's.
Nice site peeps...
"You can never get a bloody tradesman at Easter, it's a wonder Jesus got crucified" - Karl Pilkington
I haven't seen Totori play, but the guy keeps scoring plenty..
Is he A-League standard. I assume he would take one of the
Import spots however...
"You can never get a bloody tradesman at Easter, it's a wonder Jesus got crucified" - Karl Pilkington
Sign Barron and maybe Sigmund.
Anyone seen much of Chris McIvor?
Since the Phoenix are an Oceania team, they should have an
arrangement with FFA that Oceania players should be viewed as
locals. There will be some coming through in the future, though
none of the guys seen so far can cut the mustard. Not smart enough
and too small (Tortori and Menapi) or too slow (Suri). But there
must be other Christian Karembaus out there and the Nix have to
sign them. Keep a close eye on the O-League - there were some
promising Fijians in the U17s as well.
As far as NZFC players stepping up to the A-League. There are
few if any from what I have seen.
They aren't quick enough or, more importantly, physical
enough.
The one thing you will notice in Wellywood when the
Nix play is how big the Aussies are. Our boys have struggled
to match it physically with them, even more so in the past two
seasons in the A-League. They are also very, very quick.
Small Solomon Island players will likely get crunched early,
and don't have the smarts to get around the likes of Muscat and
Costanzo.
There are some good exciting kids coming through, I really
like Costa Barbarosis, and that is where the franchise
has to make its investment - get them into an academy
set up, employ some South American skills coaches
and reap the benefits in five years time.
If we could get Chris James back on loan, that would be
sensational.
In the mean time, sign the best of the All
Whites
Hickey, Brown and Bertos have already shown
they can cut it in that league, never mind the All Whites games,
they hadn't played in nearly two months.
Ivan is still going to be a worthwhile
signing, and Dave Mulligan would be a real good buy.
Brockie needs to pull his head in and work hard on his
skills. Physically he has the goods. Mentally, he is still a long
way from being of the right stuff.
I'm in two minds over Coveny, the best years
are long gone, but he can still cause some grief.
Hay - I'm not a fan, he's too slow and too injury prone,
and a disruptive influence.
Two goalies, Moss and Paston.
The back four is a real problem. Bunce, Hay, Lockwood, Old -
mmmmmmm. I can see it leaking goals, and if you do that you need to
score at the other end.
There aren't a lot of good Kiwi strikers around, as 1 shot in
180 minutes shows.
But that can be fixed with imports.
It isn't going to be easy lads. But at least you've got a
team.
You just have to aim a little higher than NZFC Kiwis.
The more I think about it the more we need Darren Bazely to qualify as a local player. Anyone know what his status is?
Coveny may be older but he was still scoring goals in a finals team. We're going to sign Brockie, I think thats a given but I'd MUCH rather see someone with the big match experience and undoubted off field presence of a Coveny, especially in the formative season. Captaincy is an issue, there is a guy right there.
for me, bazeley was the most consistent player in knights season
one, but started to look vulnerable in season two. if ricki
can't sign a couple of quick centre backs, he may be forced to
recruit pace out wide and go for the likes of hickey,
bouckenhooghe, pritchett. i'd also like to see oughton return
to the capital. he's super aggresive and one of our best, but
gets paid a fair whack over in the US and they love him. so
why return to what is, for now, an inferior league?
(especially when you get the chance to kick lumps out of
beckham).
i also hope that ricki is able to get coveny. killen and
fallon aside, he's the best nz striker despite his age. not
sure about him as captain though; i'm not sure if he'll be a
regular starter.
i'm really not sure about suri, menapi and totori. all
class players and stand outs in the nzfc, but will any nzfc player
be able to cut it?
The more I think about it the more we need Darren Bazely to qualify
as a local player. Anyone know what his status is?
God no... I don't for the life of me understand why Noah wasn't at right back by halfway through V2. Go back and watch the worst Knights surrenders and see how many of them involve Bazeley being woefully out of position. He shouldn't have been playing, let alone captain.
We have to try NZFC players, nearly all the good Aussies are with our rivals, we're only allowed four imports and the overseas contingent includes Plodder and Old. The numbers mean we have to look domestically.
The NZ sides in Aus have not once signed the leading scorer in domestic football and we've not once had a decent goal scoring record. Surely Totori is worth a chance, forget size and strength, look at The flying mullett (Spagnuolo) who is a stand out for Adelaide, he'd be lucky to weigh 60kg soaking wet and he's superb.
Hard News2007-04-03 22:33:38
Totori should be one of the strikers. The Auck City pairing
of Young and Jordan are getting on and Menapi seems to have lost
form of late. He was on fire at Manawatu but the change to
Waitakere United hasn't exactly been fruitful for him.
Riki should be able to sort out a defence and midfield but it
will be upfront where there will be problems. Traditionally New
Zealand cannot regularly produce strikers and until we can, I'd
suggest the import roles should be taken by the quality strikers to
be brought in. Coveny might be a stop-gap perhaps...and maybe
Wynton might like to make a comeback...hahaha
A cameo from the Wellington boy done good!
A zero return from the last two interntationals shows we are
in deep shissen when it comes to strikers. Sort that problem and
work back. Moss and Paston as keepers. We need to let these guys
develop. Signing foreign keepers does nothing for us.
Covs would be good, though don't think he's creative like Marcina
was last year. Embers and Marcina up front were good.
Is Vicelich past it now? Seemed to be in the AWs games.
Oi Oi Edgecumbe... lets have a clean sheet