Marked for Alex Smith
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.01, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match5 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Waitakere United's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Waitakere United has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Marco Waine, 20, steals the show — 7.92
Marked 7.92 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match5 Dec 2026
6 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Eli Johnson 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Minute 97, against Southern United, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Eli Johnson 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
A 3‑3 draw with Southern United leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Kosta Kirwan 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Waitakere United count the cost of losing a squad player
22 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Auckland City.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Smith 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Noah Lockyer
“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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Dane Kirwan knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Waitakere United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 15 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market26 Oct 2026
“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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.61 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Eli Johnson 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alex Payne and Waitakere United agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Cameron Payne after 2‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Noah Cacace
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Oliver Lockyer is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Sep 2026
At 31 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Eli Johnson 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alex Smith was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market14 Sep 2026
The market said no: Marco Waine stays put
Waitakere United opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Marco Waine stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Waitakere United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Waitakere United have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Waitakere United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 55 days on the sidelines for Monty Singh, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Eli Johnson and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Eli Johnson 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.