All Whites want to be early risers

Wood has sympathy for unwanted Ingham

In an ideal world, the All Whites would thump the Solomon Islands at QBE Stadium in Auckland tonight.

Something like 5-1 or 6-1, the two previous scorelines they’ve had on New Zealand soil would be great, but even a margin half the size would do.

If that were to be the case, they could take a breath and relax, heading into the second leg in Honiara on Tuesday.

But everyone knows that even the best-laid plans don’t always come to fruition.

‘‘That’s the plan,’’ said coach Anthony Hudson, when asked if his team were hoping to effectively put the World Cup qualifying tie to bed in the first leg tonight (kickoff 7.35pm).

‘‘But when you get to finals and these situations, it’s not straight forward. They’re always tricky games.

‘‘What we’ll probably find is the kind of game we played against Fiji and New Caledonia at home, where they’re going to be very stubborn.

‘‘I don’t think they’re going to come and attack really, [they’ll] counter attack, so irrespective of where the team is, it’s going to be a really tricky game.

‘‘Obviously we have the mindset that we want to go and finish the game off on Friday night. We want to be strong, we want to be aggressive, we want to set the tempo of the game.

‘‘We want to control the game and we want to push for the whole game to make sure we have a big enough advantage and that the tie is done.

‘‘But we’re prepared either way, whichever way it goes.’’

Hudson wouldn’t be drawn on what margin he had in mind as a target, but anything bigger than one goal would make the Solomon Islands’ task very difficult - the All Whites have only conceded once to a Pacific island team in nine games under Hudson, and that was from the penalty spot in a 3-1 win over Fiji last May.

Once tonight’s game is done and dusted, whatever the result, the All Whites will stay in Auckland for another two days, before heading to Honiara early on Monday, where they will arrive only slightly more than 24 hours before kickoff in the second leg.

It’s a decision that prioritises You would have forgiven Chris Wood had he been disappointed.

Here he was, fresh from making his Premier League debut for Burnley, the latest milestone in a professional career that has already been going eight years, and has required plenty of hard work and sacrifices, both from himself and from those closest to him.

And there were three of his All Whites team-mates - Bill Tuiloma, Clayton Lewis, and Dane Ingham not in camp in Auckland this week, because of their alleged failure to keep on top of something as fundamental as fitness.

It would have been easy for Wood, someone who understands more than most Kiwis what it takes to succeed in top-level football, to be frustrated as a result, but he isn’t.

He said yesterday he wasn’t disappointed in Ingham or in any of the others, because he knows they’re all working hard, and that they won’t slip up again.

‘‘It’s one of those thing - it happens.

‘‘You just let yourself go for a couple of months and that’s it. But they all work extremely hard no matter who it is.

‘‘Everyone’s talking about Dane recovery from tonight over acclimatisation for Tuesday, and it’s one Hudson is happy with.

‘‘We’ve been to a few places now, a few different islands. It’s not always easy to train in certain at the moment, but he is a great player, and he is a lad who works extremely hard, and he will work hard to get back here, and he will be back here, because he will put in the right attitude.’’

Ingham arrived in camp at the start of the week, but after failing fitness tests, he was sent home to Brisbane and the Roar.

A report in The Courier Mail said the Roar’s football director, Craig Moore, had met the 18-year-old on Wednesday. ‘‘I don’t think it was good the way the situation was handled,’’ Moore told Thecourier Mail.

‘‘We were never given any guidelines by the New Zealand Football Association about the level of fitness Dane was expected to be at.’’

Moore’s comments were put to All Whites coach Anthony Hudson.

‘‘I don’t manage Brisbane Roar,’’ he said.

‘‘Everyone in the squad was clear on the expectations of where they needed to be at. Everyone’s responsible and Dane falls into the same category as everyone else.

‘‘It’s not my business what other clubs do, and I’ve got nothing to say on that.’’

places; we’ve gone early, we’ve gone late - I think we went late into New Caledonia [last November], late into Fiji [in March], and what [going late] allows us to do is have a good training session here, where the pitches are different.

‘‘That works for us, we’re in and out, the players are in New Zealand longer - some players don’t spend a lot of time in New Zealand, so it’s good to be home and have that sort of feel.’’