First win a realistic aim, coach says
TERRY Parle is home and determined to bring a win to Southern United in the national women’s league.
The experienced football coach has spent the past six years in Brisbane. He previously had a oneyear stint in Wellington, having left Dunedin after seven years in 2010.
However, the lure of home proved too much and after an eightweek job in Samoa, he decided to return with his partner.
Having taken the reins of the Southern women’s team, he was enjoying being back and said the team had a positive start to training.
While longterm he hoped to help make the federation’s team strong across all competitions, he had a realistic target for this season.
‘‘For the girls the success is winning a game,’’ he said.
‘‘They haven’t had that and as strange as it sounds, we only have a sixgame season, so to win one in six has got to be a positive and it’s got to be a realistic aim.’’
He was happy with the squad, as the team had secured some quality players.
Midfielder Elise MamanuGray, who has been playing in the national premier leagues in Australia, will return to Dunedin for the season.
That would boost the side, as would midfielder Shontelle Smith and attacker Emily Morison.
He also thought youngsters Mikayla Gray and Lara Wall could be among others to make an impact, while getting goalkeeper Tessa Nicol back to fitness would be ‘‘fantastic’’.
The team would look to play what he called ‘‘the cliched effective, progressive, possessionbased football’’.
He would be able to bring plenty of his experience from Australia back.
Over there he coached at both Redlands United and Brisbane City in the national premier leagues — the step down from the A League.
All teams at that level played a 1433 game and focused on teaching players proactive football and how to go forward.
That meant teams looked to play out from the back, through the midfield and forward to the attackers.
While the option of the long ball was still there, it was important to teach players to play in different ways and to recognise when to take different options.
Parle felt that was one thing southern teams had not done well in the games he had seen since returning — with keepers looking to play long, rather than pass out to a defender.
However, that was the type of thing he hoped to help improve within the federation.
Another difference was that coaches in Australia were required to have licences to coach at certain levels.
It was something that had worked and helped the country produce better players.
He felt doing a similar thing in New Zealand would help improve the quality of coaching and therefore the quality of players being produced.
That was all part of his hope to help bring the southern federation into the national spotlight.
‘‘I see my role in football here to bring on the next generation and progress the next generation.
‘‘I want Southern United, and Football South as a consequence, to be seen as the showstopper, the pinnacle of development in New Zealand.’’