Wellington Phoenix kick off NZ’s last chance
by Vaughan Lovell 
New Zealand has a new professional football (that’s soccer - the actual game using feet and a ball) team, the Wellington Phoenix.
A replacement to the ultimately woeful Auckland franchise, the New Zealand Knightz, Wellington Phoenix represent the last chance for New Zealand to enjoy and benefit from a professional team in a competitive league.
Plying their trade in the premier Australian Hyundai A League competition, the Phoenix began their new campaign on Sunday, playing to a home crowd of over 14,000 at the Westpac Stadium - a huge turnout for a football fixture in New Zealand.
n fact, the All Whites would rarely, if ever, pull a crowd of that size, and it is a true credit to the fans who turned out.
With a very strong performance for a new team whose coach, Rikki Herbert, played down any talk of an upset or lofty achievements this season, the Phoenix managed to pull a 2-2 draw from last season’s champions, Melbourne Victory.
After going down 2-0, the Phoenix began a late resurgence and showed several signs that this team had something the former Knightz and Kingz teams of the past had often lacked - a cohesive squad with creativity and a touch of flair.
In fact, Shane Smeltz, striker and goalscorer on the day, was unlucky not to put in a second goal and claim victory for the Phoenix after his header just went over the crossbar. But, that is the beauty and pain involved with football- it looks easier than it really is.
Despite some early jitters - Melbourne were on a pressuring series of attacking moves from the kick-off - the Phoenix looked, for the most part, a team that were doing good.
The two goals that Melbourne scored were both very fluent, clinical moves which exposed some slow marking at the back of the Phoenix’ formation. However, the Phoenix managed to rally and shut the Melbourne side out of their net for the rest of the match.
That the Phoenix drew in the first match of the season doesn’t quite mean they are the next champions by any means.
And the fact that three of the four opening matches were drawn suggests that either this season could be a very closely-run, enthralling affair, or that some teams are a bit under-prepared at this early stage.
Nevertheless, the Wellington Phoenix look like they could turn out to be a strong team this season. If not champions, it would at least be nice to see a New Zealand squad being competitive and finishing in a respectable position.
So from a very early outlook, it would seem the Phoenix are set to entertain the Wellington crowds and hopefully inspire the game to greater heights in this country.
And if the Wellington crowds can keep up a more loyal and consistent support base than Auckland - as they showed by turning up in droves on Sunday - then the Wellington Phoenix can’t really go wrong.