90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hawke's Bay United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hawke's Bay United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Noah Tuiloma 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noah Just is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I watch every Hawke's Bay United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Auckland City runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hawke's Bay United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hawke's Bay United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Auckland City for Tim Reid was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hawke's Bay United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑4 to Team Wellington, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The fee is $21.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Canterbury United drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Noah Tuiloma 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southern United can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.76 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Bill Garbett was one of the reasons people came, and $17.0K does not replace that by itself.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Southern United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Everything agreed with Auckland City, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Add another name to the list: Hawke's Bay United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Noah Just. The answer from Southern United has not changed — yet.
Noah Just 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.
At 21 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.
A 2‑0 win over Auckland City, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
It had gone 5 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Alfie Rogers falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Noah Just has his answer from Southern United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Half the programme played, position 6, 6 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southern United can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southern United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bill Kirwan and Southern United agree another 1 years.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Stefan Colvey left the room before anybody could ask which.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Bill Rufer has come out of that comparison in the side, and Southern United have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Tommy Reid 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.
In brief
Looking aheadSouthern United take on the side everybody is chasing
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southern United can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Alfie Rogers falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Southern United, and 0 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutAlex Van Hattum is still being punished for one mistake
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Tim Sutton
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Tommy McCowatt
Noah Just 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Southern United, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Southern United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Southern United the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Next up on the road: Canterbury United, position 5. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
1‑4 against Auckland City, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Noah Just 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tommy De Vries is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. James Garbett is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Bill Boxall is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Joe Payne 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southern United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alfie Rogers is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Auckland City in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Winston Boxall 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southern United can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southern United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Southern United spent the window trying to move Alex Van Hattum on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Southern United, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal that would have taken Bill Garbett to Hawke's Bay United has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Southern United with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Southern United will try again when the window opens; Canterbury United may not be selling by then.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francis Barbarouses was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Southern United than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Southern United can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Canterbury United, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Southern United offered $63.0K; Auckland City said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Southern United asked and WaiBOP 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.
Noah Just 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sam Colvey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Southern United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Hawke's Bay United, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Hawke's Bay United wanted more than $120.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Noah Just 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.
Auckland City have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Winston Boxall and Southern United agree another 3 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southern United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Noah Just
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Southern United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Winston Boxall 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. a squad player is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Southern United has been clear about where Bill Garbett stands, which is more than many ever get.