Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tommy Bell will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hawke's Bay United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Position 5 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The name of Bill Payne has come up in conversations Hawke's Bay United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Jason Collins 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.66 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Noah Sutton 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Noah Sutton in the middle of it, and Canterbury United unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Tommy Tuiloma will call it something else in private.
Chances created: 8. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Southern United will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A brace, and Noah Sutton takes the afternoon — 8.83
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Noah Sutton provided it, and the 8.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Add another name to the list: Southern United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tommy Bell. The answer from Hawke's Bay United has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jason Collins 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Noah Sutton. 2‑1 against Southern United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.