Marked for Mitchell Gordon
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom24 Dec 2035
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Rewa
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market24 Dec 2035
Gus Hoefsloot hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Dec 2035
Tempers go at Rewa
Behruz Soatov 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.
Squad24 Dec 2035
Asivorosi Rabo 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.
Squad24 Dec 2035
Josaia Sela has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rewa 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.
Squad24 Dec 2035
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dane Barbarouses trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market12 Nov 2035
“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 The request is on a desk at Rewa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market12 Nov 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rewa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Nov 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom12 Nov 2035
Rewa cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom12 Nov 2035
Rewa are $11.7M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Clayton Nelson 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Oct 2035
“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.
Market15 Oct 2035
Only the photograph left for Tate Johnson
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tate Johnson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rewa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Josaia Sela 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.
Boardroom15 Oct 2035
Rewa cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom15 Oct 2035
Rewa are $11.6M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Bill Wood 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 Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Aug 2035
228 appearances across 15 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Rewa know what they have.
Market6 Aug 2035
“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 Rewa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
$244.6K of the owner's money at Rewa
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Words at Rewa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Asivorosi Rabo 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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Patrick Johnson, and the manager let it.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Tempers go at Rewa
Bill Wood 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market9 Jul 2035
Mason Carter hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Jul 2035
Ba come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Rewa did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad9 Jul 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Words at Rewa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Asivorosi Rabo 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.
Market9 Jul 2035
Add another name to the list: Nadroga have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Caleb Gordon. The answer from Rewa has not changed — yet.
Squad9 Jul 2035
The manager makes an example of Mitchell Gordon
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Jun 2035
67 unbeaten for Rewa
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 67 matches without defeat is a foundation Rewa did not have in the autumn.
Match4 Jun 2035
Rewa are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 38 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings4 Jun 2035
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market4 Jun 2035
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Rewa have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market4 Jun 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rewa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad4 Jun 2035
At 21, Josh Knight is already the best thing here
An average of 7.38 in a first team he is several years too young for. Rewa have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Market4 Jun 2035
Rewa say no — this time
The offer from Nasinu for Tate Johnson was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad4 Jun 2035
Tempers go at Rewa
Dane Barbarouses 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.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The owner puts $238.5K into Rewa
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match10 Mar 2035
Rewa make home a hard place to visit
36 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match10 Mar 2035
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 7‑0 against Tailevu Naitasiri, and it could have been more.
Squad12 Mar 2035
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Dane Barbarouses: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rewa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.67, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
Josh Knight, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.46
A mark of 8.46 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match10 Mar 2035
Rewa cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market12 Mar 2035
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francis Van Hattum will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rewa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market12 Mar 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.