A SOCIAL MEDIA SEASON IN THE ISPS HAND PREMIERSHIP

The 2018-19 ISPS Handa Premiership is stuttering to a close with just the finals to play. Instead of the usual look at best and worst of each team, here is some of the best of social media around the last season of the league.

Auckland City again set the standard, this time only dropping two points all season as they completed their third unbeaten season and recorded a record points total of 52.

What's amazing is the depth of the team, not one of their players was in contention for the golden boot and none were in contention for the leagues MVP, although with that award being voted on by opposition coaches it probably says more about their attitude towards defending than who was the best! 

But as Team Wellington fan @Patrick478 admitted Auckland City just had too many good players.

For the first time in seven years though they weren't at the Club World Cup. Team Wellington had that honour after winning the Oceania Champions League. They came away from the tournament technically unbeaten as they drew their game against Al-Ain 3-3 but lost on penalties. It was a shame given they had stormed into a 3-0 lead helped by this brilliant goal from Mario Barcia.

That goal likely helped him earn a professional contract with Indonesia's Seman Padang, it also got him some of the most typical kiwi praise you'll ever see from @warbzfc

One of Team Wellington's players who was on fire this season was Hamish Watson who scored eight goals in his first six games and even had some bloke called Christiano Ronaldo copying his goal celebrations! (thanks to James Mac Aodhagin for this one)

CR7 does the Watto

Eastern Suburbs, who last season made a lot about creating a pathway for kiwi's decided to speed that pathway up by jumping into bed with the Ole Academy. Was it a partnership, was it a takeover, no one really knew as these tweets showed (some of them from those who really should have known better!)

Wests still not getting used to their first name now being Eastern!

Waitakere United know the score

Yellow Fever celebrate the "Third" Wellington team

Canterbury United make up the top four, although there was yet again some discontent from Canterbury United supporters over their coach Wally Gersden. And maybe they could be right after Canterbury were hammered 5-0 by Eastern Suburbs, Gersden claimed in the post match interview that they had dominated and only made five mistakes. An Eastern Suburbs consultant didn't agree.

Hawke's Bay United had a difficult year, but it was good to see their players were still full of optimism  even if it was misplaced........ Rookie player Lois Toorney came out with this in the local paper. Team Wellington won 6-3!

Tasman United didn't have a great season, but at least they had players that'd put their body on the line for them. Hat's off to Keegan Smith

Wanderers of Hamilton had a great start to the season, taking just two games to equal their points total of the previous year. They lost their way a bit in the second half of the stadium so much so that they seemed to think Centre Park, Mangere is a suburb of Hamilton!

While I could go on a rant about NZ Football scheduling games in Wellington at the same time, overall they did pretty well with their promotion and coverage of the Premiership, although I'm sure one of their office staff is a Team Wellington fan and a bit biased towards then, as evidenced here......

OK maybe just a simple mistake but jump forward to week 20.............hmmmmmmm

While NZ Football's coverage was good, the Mainstream Media was again pretty non existent. There were however a couple of exceptions, Hawke's Bay Today and Otago Daily Times had their usual outstanding local coverage. Even Stuff with Philip Rollo and Andrew Voerman provided some great coverage. Voerman coming up with statistical gems like this

and then there were some other gems like this.....

 The Semi-Finals take place this weekend, both in Auckland

Saturday 23rd March, Trusts Stadium

Eastern (or is it Western) Suburbs v Canterbury United

Sunday 24th March, Kiwitea Street

Auckland City v Team Wellington