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| The team benches and crowd at Central v Capital The JourneyFan |
We are at a unique point in the history of the National Women's Football League. Normally after all teams had played six games we'd be discussing who would win the semi final out of Northern Lights and Auckland and how they would go against Canterbury United. But the league is now a "proper" league and has two rounds! So at the halfway point here's a look back at the league so far and a look forward to what may come.
LEAGUE REVIEW
No great surprises as Canterbury United Pride have roared into a commanding lead, with only the one loss, 3-1 away to Auckland. They are the top scorers with 26 goals, and an average score of 3-1. Four of the top six scorers in the league are from the Pride with Monique Barker, Analie Longo and Gabrielle Rennie with five each while Cody Taylor has four.
While their loss to Auckland has dropped their points lead to four they still seem the team to beat. The battle for second place is heating up Northern Lights and Auckland both on 14 points, with the lights ahead on goal difference. Northern have had 11 different scorers for their 17 goals and played some of the most attacking football in the league - it makes you wonder how many they could have scored had Jane Barnett been available all of the season, or Maggie Jenkins had managed to stay onside!
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| Northern Lights before their game against Capital The JourneyFan |
Defending champions Auckland are keeping apace, with their only loss being in the battle of the bridge to Northern Lights and a convincing 3-1 win over the pride shows they're not a team to be taken lightly (as I did in my pre-season prediction of 5th!). The big question for them is going to be how they will handle the departure of Grace Jale, Sarah Morton, Nadia Olla, Paige Satchell, and Steph Skilton who have all been called up for the Football Ferns World Cup Qualifying along with Britney Cunningham-Lee heading off to World Cup in Uruguay with the U17s, the second half of the season wll be a real test of their depth and could well be a struggle.
Capital Football, could well be the dark horses, although I am biased and my pre-season prediction of second was probably lead by my heart more than my head! But after a bit of a shaky start and losing a couple of players to injury as well as others being unavailable at times, they seem to be turning things around. The 2-1 victory over WaiBOP with both goals coming in the last four minutes showed some real character and could prove to be the turning point of the season. The biggest worry they have is two of their key players this season have been Sarah Gregorius and Anna Green who have both been called up to the Football Ferns, while they will also be losing midfield wizard Maya Hahn to the U17s. But still they have a bench stacked with talent, especially from the W-League champions Wellington United, who should be more than capable of ensuring Capital will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.
The bottom two of WaiBOP and Central are both on three points, which they won off each other, and it's pretty likely that they will stay that way. WaiBOP being in this position is a bit a bit of a surprise. Two years ago they made the semi final and they still have seven members of that team playing for them now. But they have only managed to score seven goals and four of those have come from Kelli Brown who is off to Uruguay with the U17s!
Central's position at the bottom of the table is alot less surprising, after losing several players to Capital and Auckland, they have populated their team with some very young players. It's never easy being in a team that concedes an average of five goals a game, but coach Don Piper has built a very positive atmosphere around the team and has got a group of players that don't give up no matter how much they are down by, as evidenced by their only win 1-0 over WaiBOP with a 95th minute winner
COVERAGE
In general things are getting better, while my coverage has dropped off as in I haven't done any blogs since my season preview, I have been concentrating on my photography which seems to have paid off as I won Photo of the Week from NZ Football.
Another reason I haven't done the blogs this season is I know Ella Rilley from In the Back Of The Net would be doing an excellent job of covering the Capital games, she's so good that she's seems to becoming a regular Guardian columnist as well! She is also a member of the biggest new media coverage the NWL has been getting this season - ITBOTN's The Return Fixture podcast. Despite originally coming from Auckland herself, Ella provides a good balance to the Auckland centric (well they do both live there) Enzo Giordani and Helena Wiseman. The podcast usually comes out on a Friday but sometimes Saturday morning. The crew review and preview games, discuss how badly Enzo is doing in their picks league, talk about any significant issues in NZ womens football (and there are a few at the moment), at some stage Ella will be labeled the bully of the podcast, Helena will state that she is right, even if she isn't and Enzo may or may not go on an Orwellian political rant.
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| The Return Fixture with my photo |
If that's not enough to get you to listen, then there are the interviews. Each week they have an interview with someone from the NWL and these have been great, so far we have heard from NZF Development officer Holly Nixon, Southern United Captain Mikela Hunt, Canterbury United Pride's Analie Longo, Capital's Sarah Gregorius and WaiBOP's Tiana Hill among others. It's not just great hearing from the players and coaches that doesn't usually happen in this league but these are quality in depth interviews well worth a listen on their own.
LIVE STREAMING AND OFFICIAL COVERAGE
From the ground hopping @kiwibardy filming clips on his phone and posting them almost live on twitter to Federations providing live streams via their websites this is something that is slowly starting to take off. Not all federations have got on board yet and there are still teething problems with some - I had to watch 20 minutes of Southern United v Auckland with my laptop standing up on its side! But they have learnt from that and last time I saw coverage from Southern it was much better. Canterbury United and Northern Lights seem to be the federations leading the way. The next thing now is to get some commentary going on them.
The federations coverage is a bit mixed but in general its getting better and they are pretty good at promoting content created by others such as the great Capital Football highlights packages by Kimberley K (@chromazura) - check out her Twitter page
Capital vs WaiBOP from kimberley on Vimeo.
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| Northern Lights announce instagram boss for the day |
New Zealand Football has stepped up a lot this season starting with launching the mens and womens National Leagues together, regular player promotions as well as the usual previews and reviews. It's pleasing to see and hopefully this is just the start of them getting more and better coverage.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NZ Herald - I just looked up their football news archive and of the last 41 football stories they have published since October 4th two have been about womens football. For a newspaper that has provided the NZFMA writer of the year for the last six years and is also part of the NZME organisation which does a bit to help promote womens football through it's Radio Network (in particular Newstalk ZB and Jason Pine) it is a shocking stat and something they should be ashamed of.Stuff - Well given their competitors performance, anything would be better! But to be fair to Stuff they have been giving the NWL some good coverage and always carry the results as well as a review of the weekends games. They have had a couple of interviews with players and they do have people like Andrew Voerman who not only writes well but is an avid follower of the women's game, and knows it pretty well. It's a shame they seem to have restricted him to the weekly reviews and we don't get more in depth reports on the games he attends (and he attends a lot - he makes me look like a part-timer!).
Of course if it is really in depth reports you want I can't do a review on the womens game media coverage and not mention Jeremy Ruane's Ultimate NZ Soccer site. I've seen JR at games running up and down the touchline with his dictaphone and camera. Even though he's recording it I'm still amazed by how he remembers almost every detail, I spend many times after games looking at my notes trying to work out what the hell I wrote!
So there it is half time in the NWL, where ever you are get along to a game if you can there is some great football to be watched
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| Capital's Sarah Gregorius takes a shot against Central The JourneyFan |
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