R1 vs Newcastle Jets | Sun 21st Oct | 5:00pm | Westpac Stadium

But this time Krishna followed up instead of watching

I parked on Thordon quay at 1.45 and there was no cones/security blocking it off? paid $8 parking for the day which didn't used to be the case and came back to a $40 ticket for "parking in an area temporarily discontinued as a parking place except for authorised vehicles"... wtf is up with this as someone not from Wellington area? 

LOL Ernie

Huge result for us at the end of the day. Next two games are against a poor brisbane and a poor wsw, no reason we can't win those as well. I think a realistic target would genuinely be 7 points from the first three games. We need the points early, because the next four after that are all tough - think it's adelaide, City, Perth and Sydney - so it's crucial we get as much confidence and as many points as possible going into those games

Agreed; Paracki looked like a very good player after R1. Still, let's be happy while we can :)

Yeah, the big concern is we didn't look that likely to score from open play, and when we should've scored we fluffed our lines and Williams missed

Difference for me from last season opener. Last year with 15min to go against Adelaide they were happy to play out a draw. This year the team is showing alot more fight and desire to get the win.

My first time at a game for a long time, due to health reasons.

Had a blast in the Fever Zone and took my shirt off, was surprised how many in the Zone that kept their shirts on/ put them back on after a couple minutes.

I will go back to the Zone again, for sure.

It wasn’t always pretty but I guess you could expect that from the first game of a new team. The boys put a massive shift on the field and had the right attitude. At the end we deserved the win, Singh was a goal and I could see the a penalty on pushing Williams in the box from the stands. I can’t really find any negatives on any players, good to see Fenton back, Mandi won a lot of tackles, Singh looks like playing on this level since for ever, our backline was solid and the Kurto looked like a good keeper.

The stadium has to sort out the food and the music. The music played over the yellow fever chants and the selection of music was bad. I don’t need it. They may should have played one generic stadium chant, like Seven Nation Army, for people to sing along in longer breaks. But as alternative entertainment, it‘s just not working.

All in all, it was a great day at the stadium, so good to be back.

On TV I could hear the music for corners!!! Did they also have coloured flairs at half time?.

Would much prefer if they just play whats in front of them instead of trying to bank points before they have been earned not something i can see Rudan doing. Dont think we as fans should be doing it either.

Yeah we we're pissing about instead of trying to score a third. Hope we don't see time wasting like that again.

It's a perfectly legitimate way to see out a game.

I was at the City v Vuc game and city looked very good imo; much better than us - will be interesting to see where we are at by the time that game comes around.

Nope, was the right thing to do when you're 2-0 up with 5 to go. If we didn't waste that chunk of time, then they would've had more time to come back after it went to 2-1 ;)

Does each full match tend to end up on line at some stage? YouTube? Or is there somewhere else I might find them during the season?Cheers.

I have no issues with time wasting just not the way we went about it, losing a clean sheet in the process.

Anyway way pleased with Rufer and Williams.  For me Rufer had a better game then Ridenton. Have always thought he was the better of the two and yet again Ridenton missed a goal.

Ridenton seems the more solid player right now - but I've always thought Rufer has a higher ceiling. We'll see, I guess.

I like when people have arguments over nothing <3

We only coughed up that goal because Nichols went for a massive air swing in the middle of the park instead of just trying to protect the ball. As soon as it went past him it was all on for the Jets speedsters. Really the only terrible Nix error in midfield all game.

does anyone have the code?

https://www.wellingtonphoenix.com/news/watch-it-record-it-love-it-and-win-wellington-phoenix-and-sky-sport

5pm Sunday is definitely my favourite time for home games, pity that's it for the season. How nice was it to turn up on a beautiful, sunny day?! Here's hoping that if things get sorted with the FFA that the club might get a say in when home games are scheduled and it's not just down to the broadcaster.

I think someone posted earlier that it's "COYN".

Burgess, Singh and Butters got some work to do to replace Mikey and Roly driving and pushing forward through the middle of the park. 

Move on!  Roly went before last season and Ridenton will not be missed.

I watched the full Vic-City game on telly and expect us to have a tough gig against City.  Victory ran out of ideas despite having good players, and City simply beat them on the counter.  I thought Warren Joyce introducing Riley McGree with 10 minutes to go was inspirational.

Rather enjoyed that.  Good crowd.  Lovely evening.  Great effort from the team.  Great result. 

Just my impressions:

I thought we played with better control in midfield than I felt we might, and worked hard for each other.  Plus we were quick to compress and defend in numbers, so smart football given what we have.  That formation does seem to work for us and I thought we played it well.

I still think our back three don't look the quickest, and no surprise there.  And I think it's reasonably clear neither Mandi (particularly) nor Rufer are going to run down Usain Bolt (haha).  Watching Krishna do the job of running down a breakaway from a mile back, because none of the mids could get there, seemed a bit sobering to me, if a great effort.   So I think better sides will cause us problems and we may get into trouble if we need to start chasing games.  I don't want to labour it, but that type of goal they scored against us will happen a few times this year, I think.  

That said we were very organised, Rufer and Mandi looked good and combined well.  The back three positioned well and were pretty solid.  The WBs seemed to make good choices about when to get forward and when to be more careful and generally managed to track well.  Plus we seemed to organise well behind them when they did get forward.  

One other thing I thought I saw was a lot of second balls won by one player putting in the initial effort and a second player positioning well and being quick to pick up the scraps.  And lots of short layoffs to allow Rufer or Mandi to get forward into space.  We seemed to play much smarter than we often have in the past, in working toghether well that way.  

Maybe less postively, I saw Durante defending alone when we were taking corners and chills were going up my spine waiting to see how that might work out.  But we seemed to pick up all the loose balls cleared from corners, so no issue.

Krishna didn't look quite as big a consistent threat with pace as he has in the past and was pretty well looked after by the Jets.  Just two up front has to mean he'll get heavily marked.  But still did look a threat.  Neither Cacace or Fenton did much wrong getting forward, but they didn't really threaten a heap either.  But they worked hard, created passing options and provided good support and runs in the final  third.  I thought they were were pretty good at getting the ball inside towards the box and down to the byline, and winning corners, without big hopeful crosses.  So that all looked well coached to me, given the shorter two we have up front.  I think mostly we were looking to keep it on the deck and to move it towards and into the box.  No brain fades or poor decisions I recall from the WBs.  I felt really pleased to see Fenton back and looking more like himself.  And with Dura, if we count him, Cacace, Fenton, Rufer, Singh and Doyle, we had a starting side with six kiwis.  Fantastic, because I think they all deserved to be there.  

Williams was solid and made good choices. He often had to wait for numbers if he couldn't find Krishna with space, so I liked what he was doing.  But similarly, like both WBs, he isn't a marque level threat either.  And Singh just did a good job.  He simply looks like he belongs and more.

Then I thought the guys coming on all added energy and some threat.  More than we might have expacted.  And that's without Burns getting much time.  Maybe some really useful signings there.

I think we are better than the sum of the parts, which is something you always like to see. And even with all the above we managed a pretty solid win, if based on a couple of scratchy goals, against a team that will probably make the finals.  And mostly blunted them.

So; long may it last.  I agree it'd be great if we can get as many points as possible v Brisbane and WSW.  Because after that we will see how we look against the big boys.  If we want to get up to 5th these first three games are the sort of games we want to manage a good haul from.  So, sure, you play a game at a time, but we'll see.  That's the next test.  Can we consistently take points from the expected bottom six sides.

After that we see what we can scrabble for, or earn, against the expected top of the table sides.  And I'm quite looking forward to see how that goes too.

One thing for sure.  It looks like we've got a side playing hard for the club and each other, coaching that has them playing well structured and energised football, and a side that is easy to get behind and support.  Long may that last, too.  COYN.  

They played for us and thats what we wanted, now we just need to turn up and make westpac a fortress.

Also, without wanting to pile on DJ JJS, Roar are definitely not a poor side. They have a lot of firepower and would've destroyed CCM yesterday if they had taken even half their chances. In fact I would go so far as to say that if Aloisi doesn't easily get them into the top 3 or 4 he will have made a dogs breakfast of it. We will have our work cut out getting any kind of decent result next week.

Early days yet but for me after a good look at all the teams it's clear that almost all of them have better squads and more depth, which at some point in the season is going to hurt us. Even so I didn't think WSW, Perth, Jets, CCM or Adelaide were so far ahead of us that we can't be competitive and challenge for a finals spot.

I added one stroke to my golf score today for one I did..Nicholls added a goal for his effort.;>)

One big negative for me was that frigging music. Get rid of it NOW.I believe the DJ whom usually sits up against the window apparently wasn't there yesterday and someone else was in his place. I noted after the fever gave him a serve, he moved his seat away from the window towards the back of the booth. All he had to do was stop playing music. It was annoying and distracting. If you want to hear it, stay at home or in your car and listen to it there. We're here to watch the football !!