Dando retains confidence

Press, 29 March 1985, Page 18

Dando retains confidence

By

DAVID LEGGAT

Played two, lost two; goals for four, goafs against nine, is hardly the sort of start to inspire confidence for the job ahead. However, the McKee Nelson United coach, Phil Dando, whose team lies at the bottom of the Rothmans Soccer League table with that depressing early form behind it, is not downhearted about his side’s prospects for 1985. Far from it.

Dando, one of the league’s outstanding goal-keepers in his days with Christchurch Brother United in the mid--19705, when the team was arguably the best the country has produced, is in his second season guiding Nelson United’s fortunes.

It would not be surprising if he has a sense of deja vu after the first two rounds of this year’s championship. That been there, experienced that, feeling should be aroused when he remembers Nelson’s bad start to the 1984 campaign.

Then, its first point did not come until the third game, and it failed to string two wins together until it really mattered, the twentyfirst and twenty-second games on the calender, when league survival boiled down to having to win. Yet Dando retains high hopes for his young team this season. He maintains the present squad is better than the class of ’B4, the confidence within the squad is undiminished by recent events and one good result will have the team round a particularly difficult corner.

What Nelson United has to contend with is perhaps the most demanding start to the competition facing any of the 12 teams.

Its first two matches, away to Hanimex-North Shore, which is shaping up as one of the top three title contenders, and at home to a distinctly promising National Mutual Miramar side will be followed by another visit to Auckland to

play Southmall Manurewa on Sunday; a home game against the defending champion, New Zealand Permanent Gisborne; and a trip south to meet 4XO Dunedin City, never a soft touch on its own patch. “We’ve actually performed quite well so far,” said Dando. “We’re playing the type of football I want us to play, but we are being punished for individual mistakes.” Dando puts the early problems down to a lack of familiarity in the team. There are seven changes in personnel from last winter, and four players have been in Nelson for only a month. In both its games so far, Nelson has battled back to level at 2-2, only to give away bad late goals. Character, said Dando, is certainly not lacking from his players. He has been using the experienced Bill Amey, his old team-mate from his United days, as a sweeper

behind two you ng central defenders, with two sound full-backs, Dav: d Brydon and John Enoks i, covering the blanks. What could ye t prove to be hi is master stroke is the use iof the gifti :d, but erratic, young ir itemational midfi elder, Colin Tuaa, as a striker. Tuaa repaid his coach 's faith in his attacking abilities wit! i two goals agains t Miramar . Dando is expecting results; from his < rther young striker, Simon D wyer, a 19-year-ol'd Englisl rman who spent itwo years with Sheffield Wednesday. “He looks very sharp; and he will start scoring goals for us,” said Dai ido. “I’d be far hiappier wi th a few points on the bos ird, but the lad’s a ren’t too , despondent. They’rte young, tl ley want to learn, and they’ll put things right.”

He has informt id his team that there will I >e no easy games in the national league — “well g ;et out of it

what we put into it.” And he has emphasised the vital importance of 90minute concentration. “One incident could cost us prize money, or a win in the Chatham Cup final.” The Cup final? No one can accuse Phil Dando of lacking optimism or faith in his young team. “Bl stick my neck out and say well end up in the. top half in the national league and get a good run in the Cup. “On the evidence of what I’ve seen — getting done by four or five goals — once we get a good result well go from strength to strength. “There is a hell of a lot of character in the team. That’s what will get us through. Well be all right.” For the sake of Nelson United, Phil Dando, and the national league, which can scarcely afford to lose representation in the relative soccer backwaters, one hopes he is right.