R23 vs Newcastle Jets | Sat 30th Mar | 7:35pm | Westpac Stadium

Brilliant performance from the team and supporters. This team deserves more than 9k at a game. At times they were truly magnificent in one touch passing moves that made the Jets spin.

I was on the sideline watching him and he certainly did not look fine.

Looks like Elliot is the #1 choice to fill-in as Gulley is making his way back to full fitness. 

I like Elliot but I worry about his lack of pace. He struggles to track his man.

Boring. I want something to get angsty about!!!

Relocate to Auckland?

Might not have the same winning manager next season

Might not have most of the current first team next season

Might not be in the A-league the season after that

How about that? ;)

All seriousness, I'm loving watching the passion and the quality of our play at the moment. Granted, nothing lasts forever, but I would thoroughly love to see the manager and team appearing in Nix colours next season.  It'd be absolutely gut wrenching to see this set up broken up.

It would be tragic to not have continuity.

This has been a great team to watch on their journey. They have got better as individuals and a group, the new players (those that are still here) have done fantastically, and the resurgence of players like Durante, Fenton and Rufer has been incredible.

We finally have a decent team and coach, and there is talk of it breaking up???

Really what does Rudan see in Western Melbourne? What has it got that Wellington doesn't have? I assume if he stays a flock of others players will stay, he'll get more money for players, he'll get an improved contract for himself and he'll get the opportunity to build on this season.

What is appealing about Western Melbourne? He wont have any of that except maybe money (doubt it will be more than what we are willing to pay him). His family isn't much closer and he'll essentially be starting from scratch again. 

Here he already has a project. 

It might be a long term deal in which case he could re-locate. Otherwise it is closer because Sydney to Melbourne is one of the busiest air routes in the world. Not only is the distance shorter and you don't have to go through international clearance but you can pretty much just turn up at the airport and find a flight. His family could fly in to see him every weekend that he's not in Sydney, he could fly back for the odd day here and there. I work with people who commute between Melbourne and Sydney (the other direction from Rudan) and it works for them.

I think Rudan has said that wherever he is next season his family will be with him, so travel times etc not an issue if that's the case.

For all we know, his family may have a strong preference to live in Melbourne rather than Wellington. That wouldn't be unusual. Maybe he sees the owners as more ambitious. Or maybe he's staying here.

Also with WM playing out of Geelong for a few years, you are pretty close to the tin shed domestic airport at Avalon (midway Melbourne and Geelong). Last time I was there (admittedly 7 years ago) you could literally park your car long term outside the terminal gates.

Best game I have seen Mandi play. Jets weren't much in the midfield in second half. Rufer had an average game. I love Willo. He's the type of person you need in a successful squad.

I might be showing my age here, but what Krishna and Williams have done this season reminds me of nothing else than the vintage pairing of Archie Thompson and Danny Alsopp for MV, or even perhaps Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka pairup at Leeds.

Allsopp and Thompson was more your big man and poacher though. I think better parallels would be berisha and thompson

Williams just seems to have a knack for the one-touch finish as well; uses the momentum of the pass really well.

re: Western Melbourne - it's closer to Sydney, easier to see family, and his family would definitely prefer to live in Melbourne v Wellington. 

What is confusing for me is that the new Sydney team a year from now would make a whole lot more sense; but there is no guarantee his star will be quite so high in a year.

So the FFA Director of Referees has a post each week explaining decisions for some time now. They're now increasingly making available the audio of the comms between the referee and VAR in their videos too. It's really quite helpful

Round 23 VAR

From the Jets game, we get the 2nd angle of the pen decision (that we didn't get in the stadium) which makes the decision much clearer for those who missed it live.

For those that weren't aware of this regular post, the R22 pen to Kamau was judged as overreaching by the FFA director of refs, as it wasn't a clear and obvious error (the foul was borderline in/out the box)

You know something is wrong with their model if Williams' first minuite goal was only expected to be scored about 1 in 20 times.

Probably something to do with the likelihood that many of the forwards in the league wouldn't have had the pace to get on the end of that pass.

If Willo is not careful he'll end up as next Prime Minister of Australia.

Surely a shoe in for the next election. I mean how many hattricks has ScoMo scored at the cake tin? Egg boi as deputy too

You see many 'one on one' saved by the keeper, plus he had a defender in his neck, shot close to the 16m box, that all counts. 

It was actually a cracking, well done finish by Williams.

Update: It was actually outside the box, extra points!

From what I recall, it's from the point at which he shoots. Problem with these HAL ones is that it doesn't consider whether it was a header or shot, or where defenders are. The ones overseas do. So in this particular case, it's probably based on past occassions when there has been 3 or 4 defender between Williams and Moss. 

It's Reuben Zadkovich bringing down the % success of like shots