The deal that would have taken Francis Rufer to WaiBOP United has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Team Wellington with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Zolani Nkombelo 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ben Barbarouses is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Add another name to the list: WaiBOP United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alex Lewis. The answer from Team Wellington has not changed — yet.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Liberato Payne has improved at 26, which nobody expected
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.
Tommy Van Hattum 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Bill Payne 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Team Wellington can pretend not to have heard.
Zolani Nkombelo 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Lewis 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.
Zolani Nkombelo 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Team Wellington will not keep him by pretending otherwise.