WPW R17 vs Central Coast Mariners | Sun 15th Feb | 4:00pm | Porirua Park / SS2

Eh. Nuts. 

Looked good in the first half. Very nice touch by the CC player to bring the ball down in the wind for their second against the run of play. 

Couldn’t watch most of the second half, but unfortunately we didn’t do so well it seems.

Ref was shark, unlucky to concede so late in the first half, however... when you have no clear game plan, fail to control the game and create so few good chances in a whole half of football where you have a massive tailwind, ultimately they only have themselves to blame for the loss.

I thought Bev got the subs wrong - Lucia Leon came off way too early, Zoe Benson was left on the bench way too long, and most of all I have no idea how Makala Woods wasn't subbed. She's been great for us so far but today was very obviously not her day, she was tired and taking poor touches and killing so many of our attacks, she should have been off around the 60th minute frankly and get fresh energy on.

Overall - I think these kind of conditions are exactly what you don't want when you're in form, you just want everything normal and to be able to play your football, for CCM it was a circuit breaker for their poor form, they are the type of team that steps up when their backs are against the wall and that showed today.

My god that ref was frustrating.   But not a frustrating as the weather.  Cold and wet, Wellington Summer.

Observations at the ground ...

Wild wind and the rain got more horizontal later on! Playing with the wind isn'ty always and advantage though.....

One thing I spotted earlier on was Wood got shoved from behind with two hands in trhwe box while on goal and it made her stumble and lose control - she was to strong to fall over but it would have usually been a dead set penalty if she had fallen (Did anyone watching on TV see it? I wonder what it looked like). Although maybe not with the ref today - it seemed like every 50:50 foul scenario was ruled against the nix - and lots of grabby stuff was go let go. 

There was also a big CCM handball late in second half (outside the box but close). At least that is how it looked at the game anyway... 

I was surprised also they subbed Leon off - she was the one player in the nix who could manage reliable close control off the ball today - everyone else was a bit off. It would have been handy to have had that ball control in the later second half when we were preessing on attack.

The ball kids were very young and seemed pretty unsure what they were supposed to be doing a lot of the time - it felt like lots of time was lost - but to be fair they must have been freezing and wet - hope they enjoyed it.
We had good chances but today wasn 't our day. Credit to CC for hanging on.

Hopefully some good lessons learned for next games.....

Gordinho

Observations at the ground ...

Wild wind and the rain got more horizontal later on! Playing with the wind isn'ty always and advantage though.....

One thing I spotted earlier on was Wood got shoved from behind with two hands in trhwe box while on goal and it made her stumble and lose control - she was to strong to fall over but it would have usually been a dead set penalty if she had fallen (Did anyone watching on TV see it? I wonder what it looked like). Although maybe not with the ref today - it seemed like every 50:50 foul scenario was ruled against the nix - and lots of grabby stuff was go let go. 

There was also a big CCM handball late in second half (outside the box but close). At least that is how it looked at the game anyway... 

I was surprised also they subbed Leon off - she was the one player in the nix who could manage reliable close control off the ball today - everyone else was a bit off. It would have been handy to have had that ball control in the later second half when we were preessing on attack.

The ball kids were very young and seemed pretty unsure what they were supposed to be doing a lot of the time - it felt like lots of time was lost - but to be fair they must have been freezing and wet - hope they enjoyed it.
We had good chances but today wasn 't our day. Credit to CC for hanging on.

Hopefully some good lessons learned for next games.....

 How there were only 5 added minutes at the end of the second half was a mystery to me...

The weather was unlucky...on a normal day we would be easily won the game. But the game plan in the second half was very questionable....we played too narrow and too one dimensional

Well that was really disappointing.  May as well cancel the 'parade'. Their second goal really did us in.  Agree with LT01 and Fenix summary of the game.  

Did I hear the announcer correctly? That there were 1203 in attendance.  Missed Jale today, but CCM sure didn't miss Rasmussen.   If we want to be champions we have to do so much better than what we did today. 

Boof! I was counting on the women to make my weekend of football happy.
Its not the end of the world to lose to the reigning champions. Hopefully this gives the team a wakeup call.

Well at least Melbourne City only drew tonight so we're  still in touch an can take top spot on goal difference if we win our next game in hand.

Refereeing appalling of course. Getting used to that. 

Yellow cards are there to stop offenders continuing to offend. Being lenient ruins the game as dodgy stuff is continuing right through  - time wasting, holding, pushing etc..

How Nunn didn't get carded early on I have no idea,but that's just one example.

Gordinho

Well at least Melbourne City only drew tonight so we're  still in touch an can take top spot on goal difference if we win our next game in hand.

Our game in hand is away to CCM. So will be looking to avenge this result.
On the table only 3 point separate us in 2nd and 7th. Mel Victory sit in 7th and we are away to them on Friday.
4 of our last 6 games are away. No guarantees of anything just yet.
Hope Jale is back for our next game. 

Watching after last week's win, the celebrations were as if they had won the League rather than top of the league. The Coach needed to get on top of that and get them to refocus on the main goal. Maybe she did but they were lost in the second half just hoofing it down the field. For the last 10 minutes they were appalling.

Agree with many comments here. Going top was fantastic, but the thing is that the pressure is then on. You have to keep winning to stay on top, can't drop silly points, look at how City were running away and then dropped a few silly games and all of a sudden ourselves, Canberra, Adelaide are all close to them.

We cannot worry ourselves with other results, the table is much too close for that. We just have to focus, dig deep in the end stages of the season (because we have difficult games - Victory and CCM away are huge tests), if we take care of business we'll finish top two and maybe even win the premiership but it requires more!

Can't help but think we suffered from believing our own hype a bit - Canberra away was touch and go, against Glory at the caketin we were average and even Adelaide at PP looked more comfortable than it was because we bagged a couple of early goals in a close game.

This is a close league where anyone can beat anyone and now is the time for focus if we want to deliver something meaningful. Hype and momentum can only take us so far if it's not accompanied by humility, focus and resilience.

I saw the 2 handed shove on Woods, I saw Nunn not get a yellow when she deserved it after 2 mins, I saw the ref go very lightly on CCM the whole game.

LG

I saw the 2 handed shove on Woods, I saw Nunn not get a yellow when she deserved it after 2 mins, I saw the ref go very lightly on CCM the whole game.

Yeah I thought Nunn was a bit fortunate there - a sign things to come as it turned out given later foul-related decisions - heavily against the Nix as i saw it too. To be fair though Nunn did manage her aggressive style well after that - was it McKenzie Barry having a quiet word with her after that first foul? Whatever, it seemed to work because she didn't give any more cause for concerns on that front as far as i could see, but was still very strong. 

That 2-handed shove on Woods though - many would have dived with that and got a pen - big credit to her for not milking it - but she should have had a pen for it. You can see why so many others would have flopped when obvious ones like that don't get called.