Ridenton only played 240 minutes last season, not much a sample size, and most of those were probably at the start when we were rock-bottom and no one looked good. He’s got 125 A League career games at age 25, that’s no mean feat. That doesn’t mean he is the answer but I’m not sure of any New Zealander with a CV to match who would be available.
Barcia is 32, and his only spell in pro football is 3 matches in the Indonesian league, which is a fair bit below A League. The rest of it is playing in the National League. That’s probably not worth using a visa on in my opinion.
Howieson is probably unlikely because he’d likely only get a couple month gig, and it probably wouldn’t be worth dropping everything and going to Australia.
There’s also access to kids in the academy, which is the only pro-club academy in a country of 5 million people. If you’re not going to use the academy kids at a time like now, then you will never use them. It’s not really an endorsement of the academy if you choose to bring in some 30-odd Australian over giving someone their break.