Marist defence needs to fire this season
Followers of the Palmerston North Marist Central League side should expect a stronger defence this season than was evident on occasion last year.
Marist begin their season with an away trip to newly promoted Team Taranaki in New Plymouth on Sunday afternoon.
With last season’s coach Scott Hale having moved out of Palmerston North, Marist has been fortunate to gain the coaching skills of the experienced Shane Rufer.
But Rufer is under no illusions this could be a difficult year for his mainly young side.
‘‘We’re fully aware it will be a challenging season for us,’’ Rufer admitted. ‘‘Our first goal is to stay in the league before we look at anything further.’’
‘‘There’s talk that [NZ Football] are going to alter the format for competitions in the next couple of years and it’s important for Manawatu football that Marist remain in the Central League.’’
Goal-scoring machine and last season’s golden boot winner Jerram Tuck, who works in Wellington, has moved to fellow Central League side Stop Out, while other players including Josh Margetts are either unavailable or have moved.
Without Marist’s chief goalscorer, Rufer has already set a gameplan around a strong defensive formation.
‘‘We’re going to be a very difficult side to score against and when we go forward we want to catch teams with our pacey strikers.’’
Marist does have the Craven brothers, Graham and Joe, as well as Robbie Yule to give Marist a strong defensive base, while the experienced Nathan Cooksley will be a vital player for Rufer.
German goalkeeper Max Hopf, who played for Red Sox-manawatu last season will start in goal.
Rufer has loads of pace up front with Ashish Sahayam and Lucian Armstrong joined by another former Red Sox player in livewire Bart Rimnongrua, who will be amongst the league’s fastest players.
Rufer has been satisfied with his side’s build up to the season which culminated in a 9-0 win over Red Sox in the Chinese Cup match between the Manawatu’s top two sides.
Disappointingly only seven sides will contest the Federation League, with three Manawatu sides Red Sox, Massey University and Marist Reserves, along with out-of-town teams Port Hill United (Napier), New Plymouth Rangers, Wanganui Athletic and Gisborne Thistle.
New Red Sox coach Neil Perry appears to be a 12-months-of-theyear coach as the Red Sox Wrinklies player has taken the reins as coach of the Red Sox first team.
‘‘I was initially looking for a break after coaching Rathkeale College and the Wairarapa representative cricket sides,’’ Perry said. ‘‘But the squad is so keen to learn that I’m eager to try and help the club have a good side and develop players.’’
With very little knowledge of any of the players Perry said he’ll be learning with his squad.
‘‘I know nothing about the other teams in the league or any of our players other than we’ve lost one or two of our best players.’’
Perry is adamant players like Rimnongrua are doing the right thing by playing at the highest level possible even though he is an enormous loss to Red Sox.
‘‘We need a strong team in the Central League and I see my role to not just have a strong Red Sox team, but to develop players to play for the top side in the region.
Red Sox open their season with an interesting first up clash with Massey, who is being coached by last year’s Marist Reserves coach Donald Piper, at Massey. Marist Reserves travel to face New Plymouth Rangers on Saturday.
In a change of format, the Marist women’s will now play their games on Saturdays, beginning on this weekend, when they host Upper Hutt at Memorial Park.
With Capital Football deciding for some reason to dump the Central League for a newly formed top Wellington league where only Marist has decided to join, the positives are that games will be played on Saturdays and the teams in the competition appear very strong.
Massey University have dropped two grades to Manawatu division one.
Marist coach Simon Lees has kept most of last year’s team.