The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Hawke's Bay United is running low.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $129.4K of what Hawke's Bay United paid for Nathan Lobo is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Transfer targets3 Sep 2029
$17.0K settles it between the clubs for Noah Fenton
Canterbury United have accepted the money. What Hawke's Bay United do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
5 in and 27 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Hawke's Bay United will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Kabia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
144 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hawke's Bay United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chris Wood was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Hawke's Bay United would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joe Tuiloma trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
151 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Makai Welch will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hawke's Bay United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Kabia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Mohammed Kabia is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hawke's Bay United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
In brief
The dugoutJoe Tuiloma asks for a word with the manager