Interesting, I vividly remember Nelson Suburbs second to last Chatham Cup campaign, I watched from Richmond's bench as we ran all over them.
Then we got dicked by Coastal Spirit and everything was back to normal.
Suburbs dominated for quite a while, its true but there were definitely times where they weren't the best team in the region, RIchmond when we had Ben Wright, Joe Green, Sam Mason-Smith, Jordie Yong and Che Wilson springs to mind.
That would have been the resounding 2-1 win then :-) (and Suburbs still finished 2nd in the MPL that season)
I wasn't trying to say which club was better, I was saying Nelson \ Tasman needs more depth to compete at National League level, the fact that of the 5 players you mention above, at least 2 are imports sort of backs up my point.
BTW Is Ben Wright on Tasman's signings list or is he getting too injury prone the older he gets?
Sure was, but we dominated the game. Suburbs came 2nd in the MPL and weren't even the best team in Nelson that year.
All 5 of those guys were English imports bought over by Rick Gower to play for us - I think we're making the same point here though.
There's definitely more depth required - we saw in the mid 2000s that the region couldn't really sustain 2 MPL teams, although there were also concerted efforts by Suburbs to hinder Richmond's success and Phil Whitley pulled his shark as well, and the Richmond team was made up largely of imports anyway.
We've already seen the national Youth League team be competitive, and having the full mens team can only be good for football in the region, I can't help but think that with any success in the next few years the quality of football in Nelson will skyrocket, as experienced playuers like ifill coach kids and especially now that they don't need to leave to play high quality football.
I haven't seen Ben play since I moved away so I'm not sure if he's still up to that level, he certainly was in 2011 though. From what I've seen he's still banging them in in the MPL when fit and I'm sure as co-coach of one of the regions top teams that Anderson will be in contact with him, much as I'm sure he's talking to the coaching team at the other clubs in the region with players that look capable of stepping up. As Q-Boyd says though he hasn't been signed yet.
Does anyone have any idea of what positions we're still looking to fill?