Jason Pine: Sportstalk host on Auckland FC securing the Premiers' Plate in their first season

Eyes forward at Auckland FC as they shake off the dust of their A-League Premiers' Plate celebrations.

The expansion side secured the silverware over the weekend and marked the occasion with a 1-nil home win over Perth.

Sportstalk host Jason Pine unpacked some theories behind the team's success. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason pine though sports talk host with us right now,
Hey Piney, Hello, Heather now Piney Wow Auckland FC. Okay,
but how like, what is it that these guys do? Like,
what is it that Foley is doing that makes all
of his squads so successful?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah? What a great question, and I'm not sure I
have a succinct answer. It's probably a few things. I
think the recruitment of this team was exceptional. The players
that were assembled at the start of the season were,
you know, without exception, really excellent acquisitions. But then you've
got to put them together, and they've got to create
something together which is going to be successful on the field.

(00:35):
They've clearly done that, and you know, the secret source,
I think is just probably the togetherness of a bunch
of players who are already good footballers and who had
a desire from the start to show everybody how good
they actually were. So I don't think anybody expected this.
A lot of people said to me, hey, did you
expect this when they got together at the start of
the season. I didn't. I thought they'd be competitive. I

(00:55):
didn't have any thought in my mind that they would
go on to win the Premieres plate and be favorites
for the Grand Finals. So yeah, what a triumph in
their first season.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
But Piney, if all it is is finding good players
and then making sure that they can play well together,
why can't have the people? Why can't the Phoenix do it?
I mean, it's just it's just not that simple to people.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Right, I've tried try. I don't know, as you're saying this,
I'm trying to put it into into into let's say,
cooking terms. Yes, you might have all the ingredients, but
you're still going to mix them together correctly. Otherwise would
all be master chef, wouldn't we? So I guess it's
you can assemble all the ingredients and you say, hey,
these are tasty. We should we should be able to
make something really cool out of this. But often it

(01:36):
you know, it sinks in the oven, or you know,
it tastes terrible. Not that's probably a terrible analogy.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
He's just really good. He folly knows what it takes
and he's got it in his head and so he
can execute it.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well. He's the money man, right, He's allowed them to
stretch the resources right out. It is. Let's not forget
a salary camped league. You can't just buy the best players.
You do have to stay under the salary cap couple
of exceptions, so it's not like you can go and
actually buy a championship in the A League. So yeah,
and look, let's give some curtos to the coaching staff
as well. Who are I guess the chefs If you

(02:09):
use the similar analogy, you know, Steve Coricks mixed together
the ingredients and it's tasting great.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
So maybe Foley is just really good at picking the
people who are good at picking the team, you know,
like that may be the thing. He's good at spotting
those people. But going from one amazing I hope you're
jealous of the fact that I now live in Auckland.
Going from one amazing Auckland franchise to another amazing Oakland franchise,
the Warriors.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Go media stadiums are like a success magnet, isn't it,
Even though they of course played down in christ Chests
on the weekend, second or sorry, joint best ever start
through seven games. The only other time they've gone five
and two to start a season was twenty eighteen. They
made the finals that year. But look, I'm just really
impressive their resilience hither you know, they lost in Vegas

(02:52):
and they were really disappointed. Came back home and won
the next three. Then they played the Storm. They were
what thirty six zerol down at half time, terrible half.
Bounce back win the next two, including the nights on
the weekend. So there's something about this team. And they're
missing some pretty big players. You know, James fisherharis not there,
Delan why Tennis, Lesnie At, Roger tu Vasachek, all the
hyphenated surnames not there. So when they come back, who

(03:13):
knows what this team might do.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Amazing Piney, thank you so much, appreciate it. That's Jason
Pine's Sports store Coast. He'll be back seven o'clock this
evening here on News Talk Zedby.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live to
News Talk ZEDB from four pm weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio