Subject: [NT] News

I was a little slow to catch this one ... Rodney Walker, 21 year old striker.

I wouldn't rate him that high as a prospect after U21. He's almost 22, and just a 1 stat weapon. I think there are more promising young strikers working their way through.

I said it at the start of this season, but I thought I should repeat that I won't be seeking re-election in New Zealand in the upcoming season. Good luck to the candidates. :)

thanks Seca, also good luck to you in South Africa :)

he there, why are there so few candidates and no votes given at all?

Will be a lot of work then for both newcommers then. I must say i'm a bit dissapointed in the attention concerning the forum here, seems to me the next coach will have to try to get this community on its feet..

Yes, it is maybe better that we attent them with an sk mail to be active on the forum. We will also get work to make the forum more active.

Qualifying group draw was not kind. Being in a group of 5 is very bad - it means there is no chance at the 2 top 3rd place finisher spots. Means New Zealand has to knock off either USA or Brasil, which will be a task. South Africa is also good enough to potentially bite New Zealand on the rump.

My apologies to the New Zealand users. I wasn't able to get the results necessary to keep New Zealand a #2 seed. It will be a difficult task qualifying the team this coming season. :S

you were quite unlucky in the sense that had you beaten Ireland rather than draw you would have clipped a 2nd seed and if you see the draw they got given, it's rather harsh you got the draw you did. Been in the situation the new manager is going to find themselves on a number of occasions now, you just need to pick up points in as many games you can. There were also a number of games where it could have gone either way but didn't.

3 points out of a second seed. Sucks. :( The previous time I was New Zealand manager the team missed a second seed by a fraction of a ranking point. Another goal last week would have maintained 30th and the position occupied by Portugal - which is an exceptionally sweet automatic-entry group draw.

I don't begrudge the ranking. I can't look at any of the teams above New Zealand and say they don't belong there (well ... perhaps Colombia :D). But it's a shame 3 ranking points makes the difference between auotmatic WC entry and uber-long shot status.

PS - congratulations on your draw. About time Australia got some love in that department. I'd say they are on their way. :)

The previous time I was New Zealand manager the team missed a second seed by a fraction of a ranking point.

That same season I believe we missed a 3rd seed by <1 ranking points ourself and ended up in a group with Argentina,Mexico,Colombia,Bulgaria and Republica Dominicana and we missed by 1 point from qualifying as we got stuffed by the match engine. 26 shots to 1-2 and we drew 1-1 with Bulgaria.

But it's a shame 3 ranking points makes the difference between auotmatic WC entry and uber-long shot status.

These walk through draws could be avoided if they temporarily dropped ranking points to 0 for new NT's when making the draw then beefing them back up again. I've stated so as well. They always end up with unfair draws. Was one of the reasons I pushed so hard to get a 2nd seed to reduce the likeliness of that happening.

PS - congratulations on your draw. About time Australia got some love in that department. I'd say they are on their way. :)

Still not a pushover draw like some other teams got, but I think I can settle with that. I think even if we lost a game against Austria, our GD should be high enough to clinch one of the two 3rd place spots. With RD who we can beat by about 5-6 goals, Guatemala should be beatable by 10+ and Ghana should be 15+ we're set in a good position. Still want to make sure of it by starting well, but it's looking positive :)

Time to revive this topic.

Orders have been set. Nothing fancy, best team available. Suspension and injury means that Bodger, Edwards and Kilkenny will not be featuring.

I reckon it should be an even, Sweden are the sort of side which NZ can beat in order to get to the World Cup next time around.

Nigeria tomorrow. Pretty much identical lineup, slightly different tactic, should be win 2 of 2, vilpu will be back for the next match, so his plans will probably get straight into full swing.

GL gibbage.

We better beat em.

Solid 6-1 win there. Good game from Kaz Taylor, blocked several shots, pretty unlucky to have conceded that last minute goal but there wasn't much he could do about it.

Good games from the two wingers too. Sansom firing in crosses to Morcombe who was only to happy to convert (3 in the first half!). Root.. haha, accurate with the pass, but 95% of those passes went to the other winger! Nevertheless, did well.

Special mention to Morcombe as well, hardly misses a shot all night. Brent Gilbert though.. still a sticking point. I am shocked he has scored as many goals as he has for the NATs (interestingly Morcombe has the same number of goals in 42 less matches). Don't know exactly what his stats are, but it is clear his striker ability is well down compared to his secondaries.

On that note, how is the future looking for our strikers? Bodger is 31, Hird 32, Gilbert 30.. they'll all need replacing soon. Need at least one to partner Morcombe!

Definitely a need for more uber strikers to come through. Interesting to see how age affects players like that, I'm not really sure how long it takes players to really get effected by the decline of age if they are pretty useful in the first place.

True true, they have a long way to fall. But how far til they drop out of NAT skill range? Not that far I wouldn't think, if we were to be competitive, but unfortunately it would more depend on how good the players are who replace them, which is the problem.