Our coach -- Mr Blobby McGrath -- has basically waved the white hanky of surrender to the Aussies. On television tonight Joe was basically wishing Aussie well against the Asians. It would never have happened in Kevin Fallon's days...
But then McGrath is fast becoming the Rudi Gutendorf of New Zealand soccer -- er, except he doesn't speak English quite as well.
Snorkel (nice name that), you were at the media conference so you might be able to help here... Terry the Spiv might have the knack of conspiratorially telling the media nothing while at the same time making out he is telling everything, but could you make a word of sense out of what McGrath said. His Irish accent -- and logic -- almost become defensive weapons after defeat? And he always has a different story, depending on his audience.
Basically we had sand thrown in our face at Albany beach and set about confirming we were 90lb weaklings.
Australia were clearly the better team but did not bother over- impressing once we'd shown how weak we were prepared to be. They were good. But not that good. You have to ask: for all their zillion-dollar players, where were all the Maradonas?
Generally Australia's finishing was woeful. Some of those misses would have made Tim Stevens blush.
Ned Zelic was the only other player to actually beat a man, though seemed to lose his appetite for the contest in the second half, despite lusty booing from the crowd which should have stirred him to stick it to the Kiwis.
Robbie Slater huffed and puffed up and down the right flank without ever beating anyone. Even when novice defender Elliott insisted on marking him from the wrong angle.
But you Aussies did have your compensations. Over the years Australian teams have been an alphabetical ghetto, where you can go a whole midfield without striking a vowel in a player's name. So it was refreshing that a relative no-name Craig Foster -- as Aussie-sounding as they come -- should be the stand-out player.
As for the Kiwis, McGrath made a tactical disaster in opting to play Rufer as a striker. The system he was playing, with five in midfield and three at the back demanded two "runners" up front, ready and willing to put themselves about and to close Australia down.
Rufer wasn't. At his age -- 87 -- it is not his game. So we ended up surrendering 75 per cent of the field to the Australians to play in, with Rufer finally tucking back into midfield without the coach making any alterations.
All in all, it contributed to the look of a team which did not understand its own pattern, and appeared as if it had not been coached. Which may well be the case. And we've been in camp six weeks.
McGarry was struggling with the pace, Atkinson had a shocker, and Jackson, who was trying to do the work of three in midfield, also had a bad day, though at least delayed his inevitable send-off until the second half.
When not marking Slater, Elliott's distribution was embarrsasing. Vicelich and Wilkinson acquitted themselves well, while Rikki Van Steeden was out of his depth. I can only conclude McGrath brought on Noah Hickey in the centre of midfield to win some sort of perverse bet.
To summarise: New Zealand didn't tackle, and had few attacking ideas. They would play the ball into midfield, get nowhere, pass it back and hoof it up the field for Rufer not to run on to. They even let Australia do the bulk of the fouling. In a nutshell, New Zealand weren't up for it. Which is a pity, because the crowd were.