Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Clayton Tuiloma, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.69
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Francis 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 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.
At 18 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 inside twenty minutes with Alex Van Hattum in the middle of it, and Waitakere United unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.14 — 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 dugout9 Nov 2026
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.” Michael Bell kept it short after the 3‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Two goals and a mark of 8.31 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francis Garbett 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.
Noah Kirwan 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Cameron Lockyer has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Callum De Vries and Canterbury United agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
In brief
SquadFrancis Garbett falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 Canterbury United, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Dane Lockyer 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francis Garbett and Canterbury United agree another 1 years.
Dane Lockyer 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.