All Whites v Ireland | Fri 15th November 2019 | 8.40am | SS7

meh, semantics. but seriously if young forward player is on debut and in 30 minutes he's tearing up the opposition and causing all sorts of problems and looking like a young messi, would it be OK to say - "wow, he's really made the step up well". Or would you get chastised and told hey, you can't make that sort of judgement of youngster until he's played 3 games at least.

Fark would you lot stop bloidy hopeless on mobile with all the needless quoting one another over something so bloody petty

Bit disappointing after the start; but I can see what we're trying to do. Joe Bell and Ryan Thomas is definitely a midfield which could go well in the future.

Damn, should've scored there

Well done Danny, true to your word. Now we need NZF to give him the games he needs to grow a team.

I don't know what game some of you were watching.

Ireland started a B team, we scored horrendously against the run of play and played nothing like "possession football" - miles behind in every stat. Then when Ireland got up they switched to play more defensively and to minimise exertion because they have a game they need to win mid-week yet they still created chance after chance.

It was only luck and Ireland's other obligations that stopped us getting done by 5 or 6 nil.

not bad result for first hit out in 2 years. Lots to work on but the base seems to be there, happy with that, would've liked to see rockarse.

Damn Joe Bell is going to be a player, composed, calm and makes good decisions. What an engine as well, impressive run in the 93rd minute!

Overall about the performance that was expected. Happy to see us playing out from the back but some work to do still. Scoring was a bonus but the scoreline probably flatters us a little.

Happy with that for a first hit-out under Hay, definitely some promise to build on.

If that was meant to be our strongest side he should have started, probably for Just who proved that playing regularly in Wellington IS a substitute for not playing social football in Europe.

I don't think the goal was possession football, but rather not fudgeing panic and hoof the ball long whenever we receive a pass football, which was well evident.

i love how he runs the ball out, sort of like frenkie de jog

I am super positive after watching this game.  The squad and team selected, the way we tried to play out from the back from the start (even if we got caught occasionally), a midfield that seems to want the ball rather than hiding from it, are all great.  Wasn't sold on Danny Hay being picked, but hopefully if this keeps up we can all get in behind what he looks to be trying to do.

Though to be fair, when Ireland turned things up to change the game and pressed us high at the start of the second half, we had no answer and kept giving the ball away. Once they took the lead they eased off and we had a bit more breathing space. but it's hard to escape the feeling that whenever Ireland felt like they needed to go up a gear or two, they could and we'd have no answer for it. The backline in particular was very shaky when pressed.

Are you surprised that ROI were signaficantly better than us?  We haven't played in two years, they have players playing at a significantly higher level than the majority of ours, and are in the middle of a European Qualifying campaign.  Even as a B team, the players have been in the called up squads, have spent time together, have trained in their structures.

Can't even be too critical about the result either. You have a National side that hasn't played in over 500 days against a quality side who'll be fighting for European Championship Qualification in a few days. Really is apples and oranges stuff.

Happy enough with our performance as a young and inexperienced squad, and it looks like we've opened the pathway from the U20's to move up the senior side which is pleasing. This is just one of those roadblocks (for lack of a better term) that we had to go through, but the signs are promising.

Based on this performance I'm pretty sure we'll be able to beat Lithuania in a few day's time.

No, but I expected us to be competitive and to try and play possession football - neither occured. Other than some occasional short work out of the back which often then resulted in kicking possession away 2 seconds later I spotted none of the things Hay claimed he was going to change.

That display could easily have been a Hudson or Herbert coached team.

That's true, but the way we played did seem to force a change in how they played.  As you say, at the start of the second half they came out and pressed high, and we wilted a little - but we forced a good Euro side to come out in the second half and changed the way they played off the ball.  I think that in itself is a positive.

I really think that is overly harsh.

We had two MLS CB's at that point. I'm not sure what the tactical flavour of the day is in the US, but perhaps MLS teams don't tend to press in the opposition half as much as they tend to do in the UK leagues.

what. a. load. of. sharke

We didnt play kick and hope football, we attempted to pass the ball on the deck as often as possible. Nearly 2 years since the last time the AW's played and this was under a new coach with something like only 2 actual training days together. We attempted to play pass and move and whilst we failed at it often enough we didnt go back to just trying to defend.  A huge improvement in terms of intent from where we have been for a long time now. Sure it was irelands second team but they have had a hell of a lot more time together than we have had.

Perspective and context matter, not sure why some of you cant understand that extremely simple concept

Sorry I refuse to drink the Kool-Aid but you lot carry on believing that Hay is the messiah. At any point if Ireland wanted to get out of first gear they could/would have pasted us.

probably first time he watched the AWs

Seeing alot of playing the man not the ball here. Everyone calm down or you can take 24 hours off.

...and I'll make it the 24 hours of the Lithuania game because I'm like that.

I wish friendlies didn't have these unlimited sub rules (or whatever it is, 6?), really makes the second half of games feel so disjointed, and lessons what it means to get a cap. Thought it was pointless/strange Hay made a sub in injury time...

It's not as if they were struggling in the first half either, the impression I got is that their instructions were to get a goal as early as possible in the second half and then see the game out, which is pretty much what happened. I think they wanted to avoid any negative media coverage if they didn't win, but at the same time not expend too much energy in getting there.

I do think we did some good things, our goal was a very good international quality goal with accurate and decisive touches, and quick ball movement which is what you need at international level. We were able to find some decent possession in the middle of the park but the players we have there now may well be some of the best we've ever produced so that's not exactly surprising or revolutionary. The challenge though is how to transfer that into controlling games and being able to beat sides like Ireland. Because that game wasn't controlled by us, it was bossed by Ireland from the first minute to the last, even when they were down.

And I do think that's disappointing because I thought that this All Whites side would be much more of a match for a second string Irish side, whose first-string side is at best a middling European team who may not even make it to the 24-team EURO next year. Ireland won the game very easily, and too easily in my eyes. Anything but a win against Lithuania on Monday would be a massive disappointment.

Alf will be back after the Lithuania game.

We don't have many rules but it's not unreasonable to ask people to abide by them. If anyone else wants time off feel free to try me.

It’s been too long between drinks, everyone is a little over excited. 

Great to see them playing again. 

What do we have lined up after Lithuania? 

From memory there were hints that we may have games in March, but nothing confirmed as far as I know.

Winston Reid isn't travelling to Lithuania apparently, headed back to London now. Encouraging performance from him after 18 months.

Wood and Thomas also not travellijng.

It's just good to see him play football again.

Time to move on, Lithuania next up. They finished their EURO 2020 qualifying campaign with a 6-0 loss to Portugal this morning.

They finished last in Group B, with 7 losses and 1 draw from 8 games, and 5 goals scored and 25 conceded.

Anything but a win here will be a massive disappointment for me.

That's Alf effectively banned from international football for what is likely to be another  500+ days

The man's name is "Baiter". Don't take it.

Surely the Oceania WC qualifying campaign would have to kick off in the next 12 months. 

Then again, you may be completely right...

I suspect if he'd screamed 'f off' in the face of an official after a behavior warning on the pitch he'd have hot the same ban so seems right.

Have OFC Nations Cup in June 2020

Just because FIFA have scheduled it, don't mean OFC gonna play it...

True, but from this link, OFC requested it to be added to the calendar on the 6th November