Marked for Dane Cacace
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 32 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Team Wellington until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Team Wellington have gone to Southern United with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The window shuts on the Oliver Boxall deal
Team Wellington ran out of time with Canterbury United. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Hassan El Hattab has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Market7 Sep 2026
12 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Noah Kirwan has moved up it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
The chase for Dane Cacace ended with $150.0K changing hands and Waitakere United out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Team Wellington have gone to Canterbury United with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Matthew Acton and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market31 Aug 2026
Every supporter in the ground could have named the hole in this team, and most of them did, loudly, for months. Cameron Tuiloma has been signed to close it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Team Wellington will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market31 Aug 2026
He is 17, and nobody at Team Wellington signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jai Payne banks a contract that will last him
Careers are short and most of them do not end in a deal like this one. Jai Payne has just secured his, and nobody at Team Wellington begrudges him it — out loud.
Market31 Aug 2026
A season-long audition: Southern 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Monty Cacace 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Business is business: Dane Cacace goes
Team Wellington paid $150.0K and Waitakere United took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan move for Cian Dillon is in the works
Waitakere United have made the call to Queens Park Rangers. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ben Stamatelopoulos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.