All Whites vs Solomon Islands | Fri 1 Sept | 7:30pm | QBE Stadium

If he got results I would be delighted and supportive. Nothing that he has done in 3 years gives me 100% confidence that we will win on Friday night. I will go along, support the team and hope for a great result. And if we do get through, we will get pumped by the South American team. The main reason I dislike him is that he talks a lot and achieves very little. As a comparison, I'm no great fan of Declan Edge but he is achieving quite a lot at what he is paid to do, so he deserves a lot of respect. 

Yeah but you say like your eleven would beat Hudson's team - like the AWs coach has no idea - when AH would clearly pick those 3 players, if they were fit. So is an illogical comparison.

I'm not a sports scientist, but I would question the value of putting the squad through a beep test less than a week out from 2 must win games in short succession, especially given that there is only time for 4-6 minutes of high intensity on field preparation.

I hope Chris Wood is fit.

Beep beep.

Yes I was indeed pointing out that the team I posted would beat Hudsons current team. 

On that I have little doubt.

I however didn't say he had no idea (read my post and tell me where I said that)

But with that number of players out (either though poor management or being unfit), it is illustrative that we face an uphill battle in 3 days time

Fitzgerald is hardly Hudson's fault.

Maybe. I think what is being said is that it ia veneer of professionalism over some poor management

It is consistent with what he has said in the past about young Kiwi players. If it makes players up their game that's fine with me.

What ever you think about Hudson you would have to admit that having a third fat player unavailable for the AW's, is a bad look.

Especially as Hudson has mouthed on from day one how he is a great communicator and is constantly in touch with all his players.So did these three players miss out on the communication, or did they just not give a shiite. To have players not in shape for a key World Cup play off is totally bizarre.....I am struggling to think of any other country where this might have happened.

As for Ingham...no great loss. He might be a good international player one day but at the moment he needs to go back to the Roar and get a couple of seasons under his belt. He showed in the Con cup that he is light years away from being an international RB. Not his fault of course. It was another one of Hudsons weird selections.....after going on about spending three years to try and build depth in every position he chucks in a teenager with only a handful of A-League games against top international sides...end result four goals conceded down his channel.

I am not 100% anti Hudson. He might be a good coach one day...in the Con Cup his team showed flashes of a side that looked like there was some tactical acumen(high press, ball on the deck, quick transmission of the ball) But overall I think he is floundering in the role....he's too inexperianced. His selections and man management are often weird. His communication is cliche. Tactically he is all over the place......long ball in the Islands and against Russia and then ball on the deck against Mexico and Portugal.

IMO he is in danger of wasting our golden generation. We have everyone now in pro football and many of them are pro's at quite a good level. We have some very very good ball players. I would hate to see the AW's goals per minutes played ratio for the last ten games but I suspect it would be ugly. We should easily beat the Solomons...even with the player losses....but I would not bet my house on it.

Solomons are paying $14-50 head to head.......

so when does Hudson get dropped for being unfit for the role?

Is not dropping Ingham totally consistent with what Anfony was saying last year about our young players being slack and thinking the world owes them an All Whites spot? Like "I can't come to training camp in January, I'm going surfing that week"?

He's made the right call, when i was in the military if we failed our fitness tests (low beep standards) we were not fit enough for operational service so you missed the boat until next time. Now to draw a sport comparison I remember Steve Hansen made the same call to the media about a young Steven Luatua for failing fitness standards required for the All Blacks in order to be selected. As a coach i'd be pissed, you want your players at the required fitness levels. I'm not a fan of AH but i gotta give him credit for atleast showing us that there are standards in place that the players need to meet. Maybe if we had decent fitness levels we could have done better at the confeds. No matter who the next coach is I hope these standards remain for future All White teams.

Whether he has made the right call or not, one of the issues with An-phoney is that the dirty laundry gets aired in the media and it ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS goes tits up.

In this case, what did all this actually achieve? What does that say about him and his direct communication to the players? How does it reflect on him from the perspective of the outside looking in on his control of the team? Where is the scrutiny about what he does with all his time when he only coaches 1 game every X months? Whats Dale gonna say on the next call up to An-phoney ala Boyd, Gleeson etc?

If you are as organised as you say you are, this does not happen (a player being unfit). I accept a point made elsewhere that in some cases, the clubs control the training load because it is preseason but then wouldn't Hudson be saying to the Roar "hey we've got a big weekend coming up in September (and its been signposted 3 years ago) can we change the loading for this player here to help with that. In return, we wont call him up for the Japan game in October when you guys still play and may need him" I just don't understand how any of that dialogue does not happen if he is "The Great Communicator" and organised.

I also except that there could be the other side the the player has come in with a real 'well I am fit enough attitude' and perhaps its not enough. Is it likely thought for a thin 18yo athlete at a pro club on a pro contract to be "unfit"? (barring injury ala Dura (whom did fail last week or something? Why is he not off home?)

I'm a huge believer that when mum and dad have a fight, they do it in the bedroom away from the kids. I also accept that nosey New Zealand (and this place is much the same) want to know the details. The question I have is:

Is there a way that this could have been done, where nosey NZ get the details, the player has not being belittled in public and An-phoney does not look like King Kong beating his cheat saying 'look at me roar' /pun

Regardless of who is right and wrong in this situation, the execution has a real Donald Trump signature about it.

"Ingham has been released back to his club to continue his pre-season preparations with the Roar"

Simple. Done. 

No you are not "rite". That is a ridiculous straw man argument!  How would anyone in their right mind want him sacked if we got past the fifth placed South American team and got out of our group.

The reason people don't like him is that none of those things are remotely likely to happen.

BTW: straw man argument:

A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.

Totally agree and that was my initial point - really don't see what AH has achieved there.

He is clearly guilty of double standards (which to be fair is not uncommon among coaches) and could easily have had those harsh words with Ingham behind closed doors only and kept him on the bench for the two games. If asked why Ingham didn't play, he could have then said his fitness was not at the level required.

Another point I want to make is that I too feel that AH is being judged more on his personality/choices than his results (although you must agree that those have been rather average to say the least), but the vast majority of football fans in NZ would support him if he succeeded in taking us to the WC.

Many coaches are controversial figures or even renowned bullies/a**holes, but when you get results, the public suddenly has very little they can say about you.

I've never liked Fabio Capello (winner of one of only three Scudetto for Roma) or Marcello Lippi (WC winner with Italy in 2006) - I actually quite despised them for a number of reasons and if I met them in the street I wouldn't give them the time of day - but hell was I happy when my teams won a trophy and did I bite my tongue? Of course I did!

I listened to how this unfolded on Radio Sport last night. There was no grand announcement by NZF or Hudson that Ingham had been sent home, it was an interview answer to a question put by [Michael Burgess, I think] "We notice Dane Ingham isn't out there, why not?" Hudson then went on to say why and answer more probing questions behind his decision. Most of the critics of this move are established dislikers of Hudson and their opinion on this issue seems to reflect more on that than on what the actual circumstances are.

AH is not good with the media he always comes across as defensive which doesn't help how he is portrayed, he might need some media training like our AB coaches have had. Maybe it's his whiney pom accent that irks me, us NZer's are used to simple short straight shooting answers or maybe our journalists need to be better. Regardless kicking the guy out for fitness and the others beforehand is good for the team.

For some people; but for others that's simply not true. Others hate him because he's an arrogant big-noter who's most obsessed with buffing up his CV (and editing Wikipedia) for his next big coaching job. You know this to be true. If we run through the Solomons 4-0 on Friday people will still be saying Sack Hudson because he's apparently a douchebag.

Yeah but you said that people would still be saying sack him if we got through the group stages of the World Cup which is just fanciful

That changes the perspective someone from my note I wrote earlier...

So is this more a case that the media have taken something and blown it up large then?

Good Luck to Hudson and the boys this Friday cant wait to watch it

mansplaining

The way it unfolded doesn't necessarily mean that the sending home thing was handled properly I suppose. If they sent him home, they couldn't expect no one would notice and ask about it. The most amazing thing for me is that our media actually did notice and asked the hard questions.

It was Darcy and Goran on Radio Sport and they sounded like they supported the decision, they interviewed Burgess too and while he didn't come outright and say it, you could tell e wasn't totally behind the decision.

Some people have said they should of kept him in camp training and not played him but there are a couple of things to take into account on why you might not do that.

1.[and Hudson said this in the interview] What else could he do, he told them all they had to report in shape, he's already dropped 2 from the squad for fitness and along comes another one turning up in the same shape - what choice did he have if he was to remain consistent and what message does it send to the others?

2. Having a player in camp isn't cheap either, you have to pay him, pay for his food and shelter etc - if you're not going to use him, why pay for him?

3. This should be a right royal boot up the bum for Ingham, his reaction to this will show if he is up to the task of playing for our national team.

Quite honestly, putting aside people's [some] hatred of Hudson, this is the hard nosed attitude I want from my national coach [in fact any coach]. To say he is just doing this to head off critism when we lose to the Solomons is laughable. We are unlikely to lose to them for a start and no one in their wildest dreams is going to think Ingham would make any difference to the outcome at all. We've all spent our time slagging him off for being not ready for international football.

Some fair points there NP

Totori to score...

Regardless of who's in or out we should beat Solomons comfortably. 3 or more in my opinion.

I'm not a Hudson fan but I hope the public comes to watch this match.

The thing I don't understand is how Jake Gleeson, Tyler Boyd and Bill Tuiloma are not a part of this squad. Astonishing.

Radio Sport tweet 5,000 tickets have been sold so far. 

That's decent. If it's a nice day on Friday it may get to 8-10,000

BUT THE HARBOUR BRIDGE

Burgess seems to hate New Zealand Football. He's always writing negative stories. This is a lot more professional than a boys club that Herbert held. Fielding Lochhead and Christie against Mexico had me done. Sending Ingham home was right imo. If he's not fit, why have him?

Anyone in welly going anywhere to watch it?

I'm thinking of watching it at Four Kings.

Was this why Themi was mia from the field in Russia?

No its not, BUT has Hudson tried to bring him back into the fold?  

Using a number of other players as example (Boyd/Gleeson etc) my heart tells me that he has not convincingly if at all offered an olive branch or tried to sweet talk him into playing at the Confeds or a marginally possible WC.

Have you heard Warren Gatland talk?  My PE teacher in the 90s, definitely not a kiwi as you describe above, nor was Ricki from memory.

Surely he set the bar from the start when he brought loads of children in who should have been no where near an AW camp who would not have been fit or good enough.

Thats exactly what i thought, with a whole bunch of 16 year olds making up numbers. I thought preparing for the next 4 games would require adult pro or semi pro, not kids . There are a bunch of these guys floating around

Correct. Except ingham can play. If you watched him in the Fiji match. He was the best attacking back by far. Shame about his off season.