Coach, Northern part ways after team routed

THE coach of the side which was beaten 200 in a Southern Premier League match on Saturday has been axed.

Mosgiel set what is believed to be a premier league record when it beat Northern 200 at Forrester Park on Saturday after leading 110 at halftime.

The game was played in wet and windy conditions but that could not stop Mosgiel as forward Cody Brook scored eight goals, which beat the record of seven goals set by Aaron Burgess.

Northern had lost last week 120 to Queenstown so has conceded 32 goals in its two games. Its opening game of the season against University was deferred.

It did not win a game in the league last year.

Northern copresident Aaron Warrington said the club and coach Luiz Uehara had mutually agreed last night he would not be coaching the team any longer.

Warrington said it was sad these things happened but with the heavy loss on Saturday something had to be done.

He said the decision was one based upon the team struggling to perform, and also the decision by Uehara to field a team of secondteam regulars in the game against Mosgiel.

Uehara said earlier yesterday he had a team lined up when the league was set to start in March but the Covid19 pandemic hit and many players had not come back or were heading back to Dunedin this week.

He had decided to move some of his more senior players to play Fletcher Cup, the next grade below, and play some younger players against Mosgiel, to see how they performed.

The Northern Fletcher Cup team played Dunedin Technical and lost 31. Dunedin Technical had a bye in the premier league.

Warrington said Uehara had helped them out a couple of seasons ago when the club did not have a senior coach and he had worked hard for the club but a decision had to be made.

Uehara said earlier he took a development approach to the game and it was about growing players and taking a longterm approach.

Uehara took full responsibility for the result and he was aware of the risk of playing new players.

It was a young team, with an average age of about 18, though it had a couple of older players, he said.

Last night, Uehara said he was not upset at moving on. He had asked the club for support in getting players but it had not helped.

‘‘It was not working for me and all I asked from them was some support, to help a player get a job, and they would not give it to me,’’ he said.

‘‘It was probably the biggest mistake of my life but we move on.’’

Uehara, a Brazilian, had arranged a Brazilian goalkeeper to come and play for Northern but that had fallen through because of Covid19.

Uehara had coached Southern

United for a couple of years where he had stressed longterm development of players and results were not the sole criteria of performance.

Northern’s new coach is Arran Wilkinson, who has coached the team before.

Mosgiel coach Cam McPhail said his side just went for it in the game.

With just one round being played before the league was split into two, he said goal difference would be important to every team.