Marked for Michael Cacace
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
45 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.
Match28 Dec 2026
Position 5, 10 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Michael Cacace out for 16 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hawke's Bay United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Cameron Garbett 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Francis Just gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Matt Cacace gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Matt Cacace is on it.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Owen Tuiloma knocks on the manager's door
“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.
Market28 Dec 2026
Hawke's Bay United have let the market know Cameron Garbett can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Dec 2026
Alex De Vries damages knee ligaments — 52 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 52 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match19 Dec 2026
A 0‑3 beating by Auckland City was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market21 Dec 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hawke's Bay United can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Dec 2026
23 days out for Michael Cacace after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hawke's Bay United will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Cameron Garbett and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matt Lockyer, and the manager let it.
Boardroom21 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Hawke's Bay United dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alex De Vries
59 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Michael Cacace out for 30 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Hawke's Bay United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The match ball belongs to Ben Lockyer, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Market14 Dec 2026
“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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
No sign of nerves from Cameron Sutton at 15 — 7.96
The hardest thing about being 15 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Cameron Sutton did not need any: 7.96, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad14 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hawke's Bay United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes of Ben Lockyer at his very best
Marked 9.54. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Hawke's Bay United.
Match12 Dec 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Ben Lockyer’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Hawke's Bay United.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alex De Vries
66 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
1‑4 against WaiBOP United, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad7 Dec 2026
37 days out for Michael Cacace after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hawke's Bay United will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Matt Cacace, 34, rolls back the years — 8.19
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.19 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tommy Just and Hawke's Bay United agree another 1 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Cameron Garbett 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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Tommy Just gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match7 Dec 2026
Half the programme played, position 4, 7 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Hawke's Bay United dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alex De Vries
73 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
44 days out for Michael Cacace after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hawke's Bay United will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Cameron Garbett 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 dugout30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Francis Just, and the manager let it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A mark of 7.04, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout30 Nov 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.” Kosta Tuiloma chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kosta Just was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Marco Lockyer knocks on the manager's door
“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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.