I went to the game and some random thoughts...
1) Midfield: Central midfield looked bereft of ideas, both Smith (in particular) and Manny ran hard but didnt have any cutting edge. In contrast to a few on here I thought Totori played reasonably well, regularly beat his man and made a few good crosses. While Fenton did all he did well (ie short sharp passes), he didnt really stand out, but looked promising for a young kid. But having Totori and Fenton on the park would be a slight worry, although i suppose Ifill knock one of them out of place when he comes in.
2) Stein H looked well off the pace, and rarely touched the ball. And was yelling at his team-mates in frustration on occasion.
3) Paston looked like the usual Paston, reasonably commanding of his area, but slightly fumbled a number of shots hit straight to him
4) Brockie played well in the 2nd half, he looked to be playing alongside Stein rather than in behind him
5) We played a lot of longball in the first half (and Topor-Stanley was immense and won everything in the air), but in the 2nd half we passed a lot better along the ground.
6) Leo was ok at RB, and is obviously still learning the position, and I'm not sure whether RH sees him playing the season there once Lia (and maybe Downey) are fit again. He lost his man a couple of times, but didnt cost us.
7) Dura and Siggy played well, the usual solid performance.
8) For a team that has played a number of games together, in the first half in particular we still looked very rusty
9) For all the derision thrown the way of Brown and Lia, no doubt centre midfield would be my biggest worry going into the season. Muscat was solid and looked grumpy/angry, my money is on him to be the first Nix played to 5 'Yellows'. He did one major 'Hollywood' where he was clattered in a tackle, and lay prone on the ground not moving an inch, so much so the ref stopped play, and after about 10 secs of not moving got straight up and yelled at the ref.
10) The new boy Clarke didn't really impress, but he had limited time, and apparantly arrived in NZ on Saturday, so he can only get better one would hope. Did have one good run where he beat 2 or 3 players in close proximity and then seemed to fall over the ball.
11) Those f**kin thunder sticks did my head. I took my two boys (one either side of me) and after a while I tolld them the next one to bang them wouldn't get any chips/sprite at the half. So that shut them up until after half time, when of course they'd had their chips etc. Poor poor option to allow those. Avoid them at the 'Ring of Fire' at all costs.
Reading all that sounds quite negative, but I didn't really feel like that watching the game. No doubt WSW were the best team in the 1st half, we were the better team in the 2nd, so 1-1 was probably a fair result. My concerns would be the lack of chance we created.