The Welly Nix Sign Callan Elliot and Mandi and We're Almost There
You wanted a promising young kiwi player to be given a chance with the Wellington Phoenix, well you’ve got one. Callan Elliot, according to reports, is about to be offered a much deserved contract after lasting basically the whole of preseason on a trial basis with the club – which presumably means starved army boot camps and all. He was amongst the initial crew of trialists that were brought in by Mark Rudan and he’s long since been the last one left standing (although he did pop off for the Oceania U19 champs for a spell, to be fair).
This is great. This is what we’ve been calling for. Mark Rudan’s an inexperienced coach at this level so, despite the determined focus he’s been exuding, he’s going to make some errors along the way. One of them is not just giving Callan Elliot this contract a month and a half ago to ease the long wait/panic between signings and also ease the wait/panic around the lack of new kiwis being brought into the squad. Because Callan Elliot, if he’d lasted that long, must have always been showing something promising. He’s also a local U20 player and the Welly Nix needed one more of those to fill out a legal A-League roster (you need three and they only had Sarpreet Singh and Libby Cacace). Shoulda just snapped him up back then and said here ya go, folks. Lap it up.
Because it does feel like the veneer of his strong leadership that had brought comfort to a lot of Welly Nix fans after such a tenous twelve months had begun to erode with some of that inactivity. He took over a club which was desperate for some stability. He talked up some firm and demanding standards and reassured the fans that their team was in good hands. But then those same standards led him to take for-bloody-ever to fill out the squad (we’re still a bloke short, by the way) and that familiar old panic started creeping in again. A little Callan Elliot a little earlier could have avoided it.
I’ve got two things to say about that. Tahi is that Callan Elliot is a player I’m a big fan of. He had a real breakout year with Tasman United last season, bringing some flair to a league where that kinda thing isn’t always encouraged. He’s a wee fella but he knows his way around defenders. A winger of the slice and dice variety. Elliot scored two goals in that season, the most famous being a late winner over Canterbury United after coming off the bench, and by the end of it he was a regular starter alongside his mentor Paul Ifill – yeah, he’s mentored by Paul Ifill, which is one more reason to love this signing. Another reason is that he’s got a hint of that Scottish steel about him (Callan emigrated to Aotearoa as a young kid).
It’s his highlight vids that really sold me, though. Excellent value.
Winger is a position that Rudan has said he wants more depth in. He said the other day that he wanted two more wide attackers, a striker, and a midfielder… which roughly fits my predictions from last week albeit without a right back. Jacob Tratt was the guy I figured that Rudan would go for but instead Tratt’s been sent back home like all those many other trialists, with Rudan not entirely convinced about his abilities as a wingback. Which… is fair. Remember that Tratt might’ve played right back for the Nix but he’s naturally a CB and he was never a solid, reliable dude out there. He was a frantic, exciting dude who made things work with a never-say-die attitude. That’s what fans love and yet it’s not really what they should want.
Especially not with Rudan preferring to set up with three at the back and wingbacks. The wingback is almost a completely different position to the fullback. There’s more defensive cover but usually you’re playing without a winger in front of you so you’ve got a huge responsibility to get forward and provide that width, which requires technical quality going forward. It’s probably more important than the defensive duties, actually. The Nix don’t appear to have a single genuine right-back in their squad… but they do have folks like Louis Fenton, Liberato Cacace and possibly even Max Burgess if he wants to get funky with it. Folks who can give you something on attack from that area – plus he can always slide Ryan Lowry or Dylan Fox out there if the team’s up against a killer left winger.
Speaking of killer wingers, that’s Callan Elliot. However Des Buckingham played him as a left wingback at the Oceania U19s and he did pretty well there (admittedly he wasn’t tested much), possibly not to where you’d trust him as an A-League player but he’s in that category with Fenton and Cacace and it’s one more way he could be unleashed, particularly as an attacking option late in games when they need a goal. Having young and hungry players at the end of the roster is nice. Having those players also offer positional versatility is superb.
Rua, going all the way back to the initial point, is that Mark Rudan is still the same guy that sat at that press conference and laid it all down. I’ve had my share of moans about the way he’s put this squad together over the last few months but that doesn’t mean he’s going to demand anything different from the guys he eventually gets. Those things that got you excited way back when, those things are still legitimate. As to whether he gets the results or not is another beast but you can be damn sure that this Wellington Phoenix team will have more accountability, more determination, and a whole lot more fire and fury.
Even in preseason that’s something that’s becoming a reputation. They’re looking hard. Rudan’s No Excuses policy is taking hold. They’re not going to be a team that gets pushed around or feels sorry for itself. They’ll be the bullies. They’ll be the ones making others feel sorry. Do they have the talent in this squad to win the premiership? Absolutely not. But at least they won’t be easy-beats. One step at a time, after all. If teams are worried to travel to Westpac Stadium, either because they know it’ll be a difficult three points on offer or because they’re unsure about the durability of their shinguards, then that’s a good thing for the Welly Nix.
Of course, they also signed that Mandi fella. Never seen him play so can’t offer anything there but he’s a midfielder with good leadership qualities and he’s played at a decent level in a country famous for technically gifted and intelligent midfielders so trust the process. Mandi’s signing fills out that missing midfielder spot, leaving only a striker and a winger missing. It also fills out the last available import slot since Roy Krishna’s citizenship is simply not going to be done in the next week and even if it is then that’s some extremely short notice to be bringing a new player into this environment – an environment which Rudan has kept pretty protected so far. A superstar marquee would be an exception but we’ve already seen that that’s probably not happening.
Best case scenario is that it’s done sometime late in the year – the paperwork’s all been filed so it’s a matter of waiting for bureaucracy to take its slow, painful course - and then the Nix can get a shot in the arm mid-season with a fresh import in January. Oh yeah and also of note is that Keegan Smith has left the club and signed with Tasman in the Premmy, which came as a surprise when those squads were announced but I guess he wasn’t going to feature in the first team any time soon anyway.
There might be time for another Nix write-up later in the week, after all they still need to confirm Elliot and even then they’ll still be one player short of a legal squad (and two players short of Rudan’s targets). If not then all there’s left to say is good luck. We’ll be on this voyage together.
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