21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Team Wellington lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Team Wellington know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Waitakere United in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dan Edwards signs something — a contract at Team Wellington or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Team Wellington lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corey Hollman 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Team Wellington, another week without a signature from Ilisoni Lolaivalu.
Carlos Carmona arrives at 39 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
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 close the window on a squad of their own making
30 in and 0 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.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Corey Hollman 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.
Ruon Tongyik 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 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.
$72.0K on the table at Auckland City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Ruon Tongyik 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Canterbury United have kept their man, and Team Wellington go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Corey Hollman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ryan Rufer and Team Wellington agree another 4 years.
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.