Including the Knights, who has been perceived to be good enough to make the step up from NZFC/ASBP to the A League?
I remember:
Knights:
Roy Bell, Che Bunce, Dean Gordon, Michael White, Jeremy Brockie, Cole Tinkler, Kris Bright and Campbell banks
Phoenix MK I (Herbert):
Luke Adams, Kosta Barbarouses, Tom Biss, Tyler Boyd, Aaron Clapham, Greg Draper, Louis Fenton, Ian Hogg, Phil Imray, Sean Lovemore, James McPeake, Marco Rojas, Luke Rowe, Ben Sigmund, Jacob Spoonley, Benjamin Totori, Hamish Watson
Phoenix MK II (Merrick):
Jason Hicks, Albert Riera, Alex Rufer, Matthew Ridenton, Roy Krishna
Steven Old and Michael Boxall went pro elsewhere before their Nix débuts after their NZFC time. I've excluded Danny Hay, Noah Hickey and Jeremy Christie as they were already pros.
Players in bold are ones that were a success in their first season and beyond. Have not judged this season's players as I have not seen enough of them.
Looking back over the last 10 years, it would seem that a fair few players have been given chances but only 3 (Gordon, Brockie (in his second kiwi stint) and Sigmund) performed exceptionally well under Herbert. Kosta and Marco were really only starting to show promise when they left and likely wound not have ended up in the A-League without the Yellow Fever and Fenton and Boyd were/are still getting up to speed.