Sam Rufer

Left Back - Waitakere United
6 Mar 2027
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Marked for Sam Rufer

23 Edition

The Waitakere United Sentinel

4 Jan 2027
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad4 Jan 2027

A knee injury of the worst kind for Dane Smith

37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Waitakere United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Match4 Jan 2027

Waitakere United are in among the leaders

Position 3 and 14 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.

Market4 Jan 2027

Stefan Kirwan asks to leave Waitakere United

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Squad4 Jan 2027

Ryan Bell keeps the receipts

“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Waitakere United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.

Squad4 Jan 2027

Sam Rufer is named among the best

There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Waitakere United will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.

Squad4 Jan 2027

Tempers go at Waitakere United

Joel Obi 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.

Market4 Jan 2027

WaiBOP United watching Tommy Fenton

The interest is real enough to have reached print. Waitakere United have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.

Market4 Jan 2027

Waitakere United and Olanrewaju Ayinla are talking past each other

“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.

Market4 Jan 2027

No place for Ryan Colvey in the plan

“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ryan Colvey has his answer from Waitakere United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.

In brief

Back issues
21 Edition

The Waitakere United Sentinel

21 Dec 2026
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Player ratings21 Dec 2026

Callum Colvey scores twice — 8.67

Two goals and a mark of 8.67 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.

Squad21 Dec 2026

Tempers go at Waitakere United

Sam Rufer 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.

Match19 Dec 2026

Callum Colvey sends Waitakere United past WaiBOP United

It finished 3‑1, and it was Callum Colvey’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Waitakere United.

Squad21 Dec 2026

Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Olanrewaju Ayinla 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.

Match19 Dec 2026

Callum Colvey at the heart of a fast Waitakere United start

2 goals inside twenty minutes with Callum Colvey in the middle of it, and WaiBOP United unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.

Player ratings21 Dec 2026

Dane Boxall in the eights

A performance of 8.09 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.

Squad21 Dec 2026

The manager makes an example of Stefan Kirwan

“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.

Squad21 Dec 2026

Dane Boxall finally opens his account

He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Waitakere United have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.

Loan watch21 Dec 2026

The goals keep arriving from Monty Stamatelopoulos’s exile

4 goals in 9 games at WaiBOP United — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Waitakere United updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.

In brief

19 Edition

The Waitakere United Sentinel

7 Dec 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Player ratings7 Dec 2026

James Stamatelopoulos scores twice — 8.36

Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.

Market7 Dec 2026

Joe Stamatelopoulos asks to leave Waitakere United

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Match7 Dec 2026

Waitakere United refuse to drop out of the race

Position 3, 9 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.

Match5 Dec 2026

James Stamatelopoulos the difference as Waitakere United beat Team Wellington

Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: James Stamatelopoulos. 3‑2 against Team Wellington, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.

Squad7 Dec 2026

James Stamatelopoulos 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.

Squad7 Dec 2026

James Tuiloma 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.

Player ratings7 Dec 2026

The game went through Sam Rufer — 7.06

Marked 7.06 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.

Squad7 Dec 2026

Chris Tuiloma signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Chris Tuiloma and Waitakere United agree another 1 years.

Squad7 Dec 2026

Chris Tuiloma in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

In brief

14 Edition

The Waitakere United Sentinel

2 Nov 2026
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad2 Nov 2026

James Tuiloma breaks a bone — 31 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Squad2 Nov 2026

Kosta Reid damages knee ligaments — 50 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.

Market2 Nov 2026

Joe Stamatelopoulos asks to leave Waitakere United

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Squad2 Nov 2026

Winston De Vries keeps the receipts

“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Waitakere United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.

Squad2 Nov 2026

Sam Rufer in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Match31 Oct 2026

WaiBOP United take the points off Waitakere United

Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.

Player ratings2 Nov 2026

Nobody could get near Dane Boxall

Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Player ratings2 Nov 2026

James Stamatelopoulos takes the honours

Marked 7.96 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Waitakere United had the best player on the pitch.

Market2 Nov 2026

Waitakere United and Olanrewaju Ayinla are talking past each other

“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.

In brief

3 Edition

The Waitakere United Sentinel

17 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Market17 Aug 2026

Waitakere United turn down Southern United for Monty Stamatelopoulos

The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.

Squad17 Aug 2026

A move Olanrewaju Ayinla would have made for nothing

There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Olanrewaju Ayinla is living that version at Waitakere United, and it tends to show in the first month.

Squad17 Aug 2026

Tempers go at Waitakere United

Joel Obi 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.

Squad17 Aug 2026

Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Olanrewaju Ayinla 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.

Squad17 Aug 2026

Sam Rufer 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.

Market17 Aug 2026

Hawke's Bay United join the queue for Joe De Vries

Add another name to the list: Hawke's Bay United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Joe De Vries. The answer from Waitakere United has not changed — yet.

In brief

2 Edition

The Waitakere United Sentinel

10 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Market10 Aug 2026

Joe Stamatelopoulos hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Waitakere United can pretend not to have heard.

Squad10 Aug 2026

Sam Rufer stays put

“The easiest signature of my career.” Sam Rufer and Waitakere United agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.

Squad10 Aug 2026

Tempers go at Waitakere United

Joel Obi 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.

In brief