There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Team Wellington scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A brace, and Deklan Kirwan takes the afternoon — 8.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Deklan Kirwan provided it, and the 8.45 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 Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladimir Bubanja 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Noah Reid could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutDan Edwards has become a man the manager trusts
Vladimir Bubanja 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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Corey Hollman, and the manager let it.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Noah Reid left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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.
Nobody at Team Wellington will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
Player ratingsDan Edwards beats them one at a time
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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Team Wellington, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
James Donachie 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladimir Bubanja was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Owen Boxall is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Noah Reid after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Team Wellington would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. WaiBOP United will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 WaiBOP United, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Alberto Delgado, marked 6.95, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Alberto Delgado 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordan Vale was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every WaiBOP United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Team Wellington runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 94 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Alberto Delgado 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chris Colvey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 33 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for WaiBOP United is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“I did not go to Team Wellington to sit and watch. I want to come back to WaiBOP United and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what WaiBOP 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 Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Team Wellington asked and Hawke's Bay United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
15 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Team Wellington are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A season-long audition: Waitakere United still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Team Wellington's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Walter Scott has just signed for Team Wellington, and for once the answer mattered.
James Donachie 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Team Wellington were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Team Wellington know which stage they are at.
Team Wellington have made the call to Waitakere United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
WaiBOP United have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues is 19, and Team Wellington have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.