4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
A performance of 8.08 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Callum Van Hattum kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Player of the week, judged against every other man in the division. A small award, and one most careers never collect.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Francis Reid's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Michael Waine, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
$2.0K settles it between the clubs for Oliver Fenton
Waitakere United have accepted the money. What Team Wellington do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Team Wellington asked and Southern United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 2‑0 win over Hawke's Bay United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Stefan Smith has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Marked 8.22 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The hardest thing about being 16 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Michael Waine did not need any: 8.04, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Steven Lustica was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Kosta Sutton has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Steven Lustica and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
A 3‑1 win over Southern United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Southern United spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Canterbury United next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ilisoni Lolaivalu, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Callum Van Hattum, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Callum Just has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Francis Reid's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Team Wellington will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Marked 7.36. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Callum Van Hattum chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Auckland City? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.